Hello. Good morning, everyone, and Happy New Year to you all.
If you've not met me before, I'm named Steve, the lead pastor here at St. Paul's.
I hope that this year, 2026, is a year of you know God's richest blessings.
One of the things, I'm not sure what you have planned so far in your New Year's resolutions
and what you're hoping for 2026, but one of the things that we can all look forward to
in 2026 is that it is a census year, and so expect that at some point this year to have
people knocking on your door and having copious amounts of questions about your life to fill out.
The last national census we had, happens every five years, 2021, revealed that 45% of our
neighbourhood here in Chatswood have no religious belief at all. In fact, it is more than 10% higher
than the average in New South Wales and across Australia, so we are a highly non-religious area
where we are. We also rate rated much lower than the state and the national average.
For those who are claiming, those who do have religious belief, those who are claiming to have
a Christian faith. So not only are we not religious, we are very low when it comes to
the idea of those who would identify as Christian. And so as we kick off a brand new year in 2026,
the question I'm asking is, is it reasonable to be a Christian? Not just in this area, but is it reasonable
to be Christian at all? And so over the next four weeks, we're going to be unpacking that question.
And really, the answer to it, we're going to keep landing on is very much a resounding yes.
As time goes on, more and more are resounding yes. We'll be exploring why faith in Jesus Christ
is reasonable, why it's plausible, why it is good, why it is desirable, in fact. And so if you are,
for instance, maybe an agnostic, tuning in over the next few weeks, I want to ask whether you are 100%
certain that you want to stay uncertain about God. If you are a sceptic tuning in, I maybe want you to
consider what kind of God it is whose existence that you would deem implausible. What kind of God
would that be? And if you are a Christian tuning in, my hope is in the next few weeks,
you become more confident in terms of hope in Jesus, but also that you would be more confident
that it is good and plausible and right and desirable to continue to grow deeper in Jesus
in 2026 and you'd have a plan to do so. And so this morning, what I'm really wanting to do is just
to briefly consider whether it's reasonable to be a person of faith in an increasingly secular era and
neighbourhood, and whether it is reasonable to have faith in God and particularly to have faith in Jesus.
That's our journey this morning. So is faith reasonable? Now, history is full of famous and brilliant people
looking at evidence for God's existence and moving in two totally different directions. At the one end,
for instance, you might have the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell.
He was asked very late in life, you know, if he, what he would say if he discovered there was in fact a God
after he died. What would you say in that moment? And his reply was, God, you didn't give us enough evidence.
That would be his reply. On the other hand, you've got other people on the other end of the spectrum,
again, likewise, brilliant people, famous people, Elizabeth Anscombe, who may not be famous to you all,
but in actual fact, one of the most famous philosophers in the English language, Elizabeth
Anselm, she actually looked at the evidence for God and moved from atheism towards and to Christianity.
So looking at the same evidence and at the same time as Bertrand Russell and moved in two different directions.
And the list on both sides is long and distinguished. So how do we account for that? How do you account
that you've got same people looking at the same or different people look at the same evidence and going
in two different directions? Now, the more common argument used today in our culture to solve that
problem is that religious people, they ground their life in a thing called faith, but secular people
ground their life in logic and reason and science. Hence, the title of this series is Let's Be Reasonable.
Religious people have faith and something deep inside of them that they need fulfilling and they
therefore have a bias towards religion and an emotional need to believe in something beyond
themselves. Secular people are just, well, they're just not, they're just unbiased. They don't have that
bias, they're objective and they look at life entirely rationally. That's how it's generally argued in our
society nowadays. And frankly, it's just simply not true. In his book, A Secular Age, Charles Taylor,
what he calls this view, the subtraction story. This is where a person might say, well, you know,
I used to believe in God and the supernatural, but because of science, because of reason,
I just subtracted God. And now I just see things the way they actually are. You know, I'm just unbiased.
It's a common view that, you know, you'll see an atheist will debate with a Christian.
You believe in one God, what about everyone else who believes in multiple gods? You've deleted all
those other gods and I've just gone one extra step and deleted your God as well. That's all I've done.
The same principle. That's how an atheist will argue with the subtraction of story.
The reality is though, to move from belief in God to non-belief is a shift from one set of beliefs
beliefs to an entirely new set of beliefs. It is not a move from belief to non-belief.
It is a move from one set of beliefs to an entirely new set of beliefs.
One of the very first sets of beliefs a secular person adopts, an atheist will adopt,
is called exclusive rationalism. And it's the belief that science is the only arbiter of what is real
and factual and that nothing should be believed that unless it can be decisively proven with evidence
and observation. Now, that sounds reasonable. It's, of course, it's actually irrational, but it sounds reasonable.
For instance, just take that statement on the board. What is, for instance, the observable proof?
What is the factual evidence that that statement is true?
That is, the very claim of exclusive rationality can't even meet its own criteria.
That statement can't be proven factually at all.
Even reason and proof must start with faith in reason and proof.
In some kind of concept, exclusive rationality depends on the belief that human senses,
our eyes, our ears, our minds, our memories, are not tricking us in any way.
It has to start with that assumption.
Observation and scientific evidence can neither prove that there is a God nor disprove that there is a God.
They can't do either of those things.
And so all varieties of secularism are set to beliefs,
not just simply the absence of a belief or the absence of faith.
And therefore, it needs to be proven.
I saw an interview between the comedian Ricky Gervais and US comedian, talk show host Stephen Colbert.
Gervais is an agnostic atheist.
Colbert is a confused Catholic.
So they go well together.
And Gervais was explaining how his entire worldview relied completely on science.
That was it.
Completely on science, evidence, fact, logic to explain all things.
He made it clear that he was not a person of faith.
He had no faith at all whatsoever.
He was just purely a person of logic and fact.
He then made a comment in the course of the interview about how the universe started from this freakish,
minuscule burst of light that happened billions of years ago.
And Colbert, in this moment, was very sharp, very quick.
He jumped in and said, can you actually prove that statement?
Can you actually prove that statement?
He said, aren't you just relying upon what Stephen Hawkins himself was,
declared an opinion?
And at that moment, you can see Gervais was really thrown back a little bit.
And then Colbert jumps in and rescues the thing.
And they had a bit of a laugh and they moved on kind of stuff.
But in other words, what he did was, it was actually a step of faith.
It was actually a step of faith.
His entire worldview was began with a step of faith, with a belief in something.
You see, theism nor atheism can be 100% proven by data.
They are systems of thinking and believing that need to be compared to one another
to determine which one makes the most sense,
which makes the most sense of our experience of things we know and need to explain,
which one makes the most sense of our social experience
and addresses the problems we face in living together as human society.
And which of these is most logically consistent internally as a belief system,
without importing ideas from other worldviews and systems?
Which brings me to the second point.
Is faith in God reasonable?
If, therefore, we can establish that all people exercise faith to some degree,
is it reasonable to have faith in a God?
Believers in God have argued that God's existence cannot be proven empirically
empirically as if God were like a physical object that you can put in a science lab and test.
But the existence of God can be logically inferred.
Logically inferred.
And, in fact, many scientific theories work on exactly the same principle,
the logical inference that something is true.
Physics is mainly based on logical inference.
And Christianity suggests there are very significant clues that point to the existence of God.
Psalm 19 in the Old Testament tells us that God has put his fingerprints everywhere in the universe.
The heavens declare the glory of God.
The skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day, they pour forth speech.
Night after night, they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech.
They use no words.
No sound is heard from them.
And yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to mention just two clues.
There is at least more than 30 big systems of clues.
They're big systems of clues.
I'm going to just mention two very briefly.
There is the cosmic wonder clue.
Modern science is completely insufficient to explain the existence of the world.
Because there are two unavoidable questions.
Two unavoidable questions that need to be asked.
First of all, how did the indescribably variety of life in this universe come to be?
You know, there's more than 900,000 species of just insects.
How did all of that variety come to be?
How did we go from a single-celled life in prehistoric soup to mosquitoes and giraffes
and the billions of other things in between?
Now, there's an infinity of articles or books or conferences or TV programs or PhD theses.
Studies have been devoted to that topic.
And it's a widely discussed topic.
And the general view is a thing called evolution.
And that is it all happened by accident and it's just kind of evolved from there.
It's become, it's no longer a theory, it's become regarded as fact.
But the second unavoidable question, and biologists want to talk about evolution all the time,
but the second unavoidable question is this one.
What happened to bring life into existence in the very first place?
What happened there?
And that question is very rarely ever asked.
Much less is it answered with any scientific credibility.
How does, and this is the massive question,
the massive question,
how does life come from no life?
How does that happen?
In 1952,
at the University of Chicago,
two scientists tried to replicate
what you might call the Big Bang,
to get life from no life.
It became known as the Miller-Urey experiment.
It's quite a famous experiment.
In 1952.
And they were able to produce
a change
in four elements.
But they weren't able to produce life.
And certainly not able to produce life
that would produce life itself.
In the end,
in 1952,
it was a
failed experiment
to produce life from non-life.
That's
1952.
Think of the
scientific advancements that we've had
since 1952,
in the last seven decades.
I could
rattle off a long list.
Initially,
I did have a long list of everything that's happened
since 1952
in scientific advancement.
And the Miller-Urey experiment
has never been advanced upon
since 1952.
No one,
no scientist,
has been able to go
take life
out of no life.
And this is the question
that science,
frankly,
cannot answer
and their entire
worldview hinges on it.
That an atheist worldview
hinges on this one.
You see,
what Christians have been saying
for centuries
is that the existence
of God
is inferred
from the existence
of life itself.
Life must come
from something
that is already
alive.
It cannot come
from something
that is dead,
that doesn't exist.
In his book,
The Language of God,
scientist
Francis Collins
puts it like this.
we have this
very solid conclusion
that the universe
had an origin,
the Big Bang,
15 billion years ago.
The universe began
with an unimaginable
bright flash of energy
from an infinitely
small point.
That implies
that before that,
there was nothing.
I cannot imagine
how nature,
in this case,
the universe,
could have created itself.
And the very fact
that the universe
had a beginning
implies that someone
was able to begin it.
And it seems to me
that had to be
outside of nature.
And so,
ironically,
for the rickage of aces
and so on of this world,
science itself
has given us
a strong case
that there is something
beyond the natural world
that brought it
into existence.
And which even now
upholds the existence
of this universe.
universe.
That's the first clue,
the cosmic wonder clue.
The second one,
which builds on that one,
the second clue
for God's existence,
is the fine-tuning
design of the world.
At one point,
the most famous atheist
in the world,
a guy named Christopher Hitchens,
admitted that the fine-tuning
of the universe argument
was an argument
that was not trivial.
The most difficult one,
you had to think about it hard,
the most difficult one
to actually get over.
And so,
the fine-tuning argument
is kind of like this.
Think of existence
as a set of dials.
Every one of those dials
must be at exactly
the right point,
precisely at the right point
for life to exist.
Even a slight variation
on any one of those dials,
on any one of them,
would be enough
for life to no longer
be able to exist.
On any one of the dials.
And the irony is,
it's with the advance
of science
that we're discovering
that this clue
is getting stronger
and stronger
and stronger.
The scientist Carl Sagan
once said
that there are only
two parameters
for life to exist.
In other words,
there's only two dials
on the deck.
With the advance
of the decades,
science has discovered
literally
hundreds of parameters,
hundreds of dials
that need to be
fine-tuned perfectly,
not just in this world,
not just in human life,
but also in the universe
for life to exist.
And the possibility
that those dials
came to accidentally
be set
at exactly the right spot,
at exactly the right time
for life to begin,
and
to have stayed
statically
in those spots
for life to continue
to go on existing
is a massive leap
of faith.
And it's also
a rejection
of scientific evidence
that shows
the universe
is not static at all.
You see,
believers in God
suggest
the fine-tuning
of physics
makes much more sense
in a universe
in which there is
a creator
and a designer
who constantly
has his hands
on those dials.
To quote
Collins again,
if any one
of those constants,
one of those dials,
was off
by even
one part
in a million,
or in some cases
one part
in a million million,
the universe
could not have come
to the point
where we see it.
Matter
would not have been
able to coalesce.
There would have been
no galaxy,
no stars,
no planets,
all people.
And so it would be
more reasonable
to conclude
it was something
intended
and designed.
Even the
famous atheist
Richard Dawkins
says that
the characteristics
of our world
is the characteristics
of design,
even though he himself
rejects a designer.
Is that
conclusive proof?
Not at all.
Because it suggests
only that it's
more likely
that there is
a God
than there is
not a God.
But even
those two
cannot just
be dismissed.
The distinguished
physician
Lewis Thomas
wrote,
I cannot
make peace
with a randomness
doctrine.
I cannot
abide the
notion
of purposeless
and blind
chance
in nature.
And yet
I do not
know what
to put
in its
place
for the
quieting
of my
mind.
So there's
just two
of the
at least
30
extensive
clues
for the
existence
of God.
Now none
of these
clues
are so
strong
by themselves
as to
false
belief.
But
they do
make it
entirely
rational,
entirely
rational to
believe in
the existence
of God.
And in
actual fact,
with the
advance of
science,
and it is
rapidly
advancing,
it becomes
more and
more
irrational
to be an
atheist
based on
scientific
evidence.
I can
cope with
an
agnostic,
but an
atheist to
say that
they are
rational is
to deny
the
scientific
evidence.
Now the
clues for
God not
only do
not prove
God's
existence,
but all
they really
do is
they get
us to a
point where
there's a
potential for
some abstract
God out
there.
what Christians
believe is
that the
main way
we know
specifics about
this God
is that this
God has
revealed
himself in
the person
of Jesus
Christ.
And so
is faith in
Jesus reasonable
in 2026?
Now God
has not
revealed
himself,
not first
through our
thinking,
but through
God or
through our
assumptions
about God,
but that God
has specifically
spoken to
us.
He speaks
to us
according to
Psalm 19
in the
Creator,
all his
fingerprints
everywhere,
but he
speaks to
us very
specifically,
very
specifically
in his
Son,
the Lord
Jesus.
Hebrews
1,
read out
to us
by Janet,
is referring
to Jesus
when it
makes the
claim that
Jesus Christ
is the
final and
decisive
communication
of God
to humanity.
In the
past,
God spoke
to our
ancestors
through the
prophets
at many
times and
in various
ways,
but in
these last
days,
he has
spoken to
us by
his
Son,
whom he
appointed
heir of
all things,
and through
whom also
he made
the
universe.
The
Son is
the
radiance
of God's
glory and
the exact
representation
of his
being.
And so
it's not
surprising if
that's true,
that there
is a
God and
this God
has revealed
himself by
sending
his Son,
the person
of his
Son,
the second
member of
the Trinity
into his
world so
that we
might know
God.
If that
is true,
it's not
surprising why
Christians would
call Jesus
Christ the
single most
influential
person who
has ever
lived.
A greater
percentage of
the world's
population than
ever before
is Christian.
And
Christianity
adds to
its ranks
just under
19 million
new Christians
every year.
And
Christianity
is the
one major
religion in
the world
that is
most equally
distributed
throughout all
the continents
of the
world.
No other
faith has
so extensively
crossed
cultural
divisions of
humanity and
found a place
in so many
diverse cultural
contexts,
from the
intellectual
elites to
the uneducated,
for the
poor to
the rich,
from the
west to
the east,
everywhere.
Why has
Jesus
affected so
much of
humanity?
The answer
to that
question can
only come by
looking at
his life,
his words,
and his
actions.
You see,
in Jesus,
we see the
qualities and
the virtues
that we
would
ordinarily
consider,
incompatible
in the
same person.
That is,
Jesus combines
both high
majesty with
the greatest
humility.
He joins
the strongest
commitment to
justice with
astonishing
grace and
mercy,
and he
reveals a
transcendent
self-sufficiency
and yet an
entire trust in
and reliance
upon his
heavenly father
at the same
time.
We are
surprised with
the person
of Jesus
to see
such
tenderness
but without
weakness,
boldness
without
harshness,
humility
without
an
uncertainty,
indeed
accompanied
by a
towering
self-confidence.
He's
unbending
convictions
but
complete
approachability,
his
insistence
on truth
but always
bathed in
love,
his power
without
insensitivity,
integrity
without
rigidity,
passion
without
prejudice.
That's
his life
and it's
perplexing,
it's a
paradox.
People
who have
read and
pondered
Jesus'
words,
his deeds,
his life
have
groped
for good
ways to
explain it
and to
try and
describe what
they see
in the
person of
Jesus.
And many
throughout the
history of
this world
and 19
million people
a year
continue
to realise
that the
remarkable
claims that
Jesus had
about
himself is
the only
way that
you could
land with
the person
of Jesus.
You see,
what is so
surprising
about Jesus
is that
his claims
were so
entirely
self-focused,
self-centred,
but his
character and
his actions
were so
completely
unself-centred,
other-person
centred,
we never
see him
pompous
or offended
or standing
on his
dignity,
he's
approachable
to the
weakest
person
and the
most
broken
person,
we don't
ever see
him moody
or irritable,
there is
an unsurpassed
moral and
spiritual beauty
about his
character and
the teachings
of Jesus
Christ.
Houston
Smith in his
book,
The World's
Religions,
he wrote
there that
only Buddha
and Jesus
so impressed
their
contemporaries,
so impressed
their contemporaries,
that their
contemporaries
were asking
the question,
not just
simply,
who are
you,
but what
are you?
Your life
is not
normal human
life,
what are
you?
Only
those two
figures had
characters that
transcended
ordinary human
life to the
degree that
that question
was necessary.
Buddha
asserted
with absolute
clarity
and with
a deep,
deep emphasis
that he was
not divine
in any way,
that he was
not an
angelic being
in any way
whatsoever,
he was fully
human.
On the
other hand,
Jesus
repeatedly
and
continually
claimed to
be the
God
who created
all things.
Jesus
made that
claim of
himself
clearly
and that
creates an
enormous
challenge for
us
because
Jesus is
one of the
very few
persons in
history of
humanity
who founded
a great
world
religion.
He belongs
to a very,
very small
group of
people who
have founded
a great
world religion,
who have
had a
massive impact
on millions
of people
largely because
of their
brilliant
teaching,
but also
because of
their
admirable
lives and
characters.
But the
difference
between
Jesus
and the
others in
that small
group
is that
he was the
only one
who claimed
to be
God.
God, the
only one
who claimed
to be the
God who
created all
things.
Buddha
emphatically
said that
he wasn't.
Muhammad,
of course,
would never
ever have
claimed to
be Allah
and nor
did
Confucius.
Jesus
is the
only one,
God,
but he's
also part
of a
second
group of
people who
claimed to
be God.
Of course,
there are
plenty of
nut jobs
out there,
isn't there?
And what
makes him
unique in
this group
of people,
what makes
in fact this
whole group
of people
unique,
apart from
Jesus,
is that the
members of
this group,
this small
group of
people who
claimed to
be God,
were only
able to
convince a
very small
group of
people,
that they
were in
fact divine,
that they
were in
fact God.
So why
did Jesus
succeed?
Succeed as
the only
person who
ever claimed
deity and
founded a
major religion,
in fact the
largest one.
How was
he able to
do that?
Firstly,
because his
life was
exquisitely
beautiful.
It is
extraordinarily
difficult to
claim to
be God,
to claim to
be perfect,
to claim to
be divine,
and then at
the same time
get everyone
you live with
to be convinced
of that truth
as well.
God.
I mean,
his disciples
were with
him for
three years.
On the
most part,
if we had
12 people who
lived with
us for
three years,
you wouldn't
get past
lunch on the
first day and
your claims to
divinity would
be crushed.
The evidence is
there for all
to see.
The other
reason that
Jesus was
worshipped by
Jews as
God very
significantly is
that he in
fact came back
to life after
he was
crucified on
a Roman
cross.
And so in
Jesus Christ is
a man who
claimed to be
God, yet who
lived a life so
great that he
became the only
person to
convince a
sizable part of
humanity and
continues to do
so, that he
was in fact who
he said he
was.
And what that
means is that
none of us can
be indifferent to
that claim.
No one can be
indifferent to
that claim.
It's not just
for people of
faith.
We cannot
resolve the
issue by
saying he
was only a
great teacher,
good bloke.
work because
all of his
declarations of
what he said
about himself
do not allow
us just to
land at that
point.
We can't
say, well, he
never really made
those claims about
himself because
all the historical
evidence is there.
We cannot be
content with the
explanation that
he was deranged
or that he
was a fraud
because of the
clear evidence
of his wisdom
and his
greatness and
the impact of
his life on
his followers
and because of
the historical
case for his
resurrection.
And that
leaves us with
the final
possible
explanation,
namely, that
Jesus Christ
is who he
claimed to
be.
And that
is the
creator God
coming into
earth,
siding with
us to
reveal the
God who
made it all
and who
sustains it
all.
You see, as
the creator of
the universe,
he makes
claims on
every single
one of our
lives.
And what
he said to
Thomas in
John 14,
and it's a
little verse
that came
straight after
what was
read,
still stands
for your
life and
for my
life.
This is
still the
claim over
your life
now.
Jesus said,
I am
the way,
the truth,
and the
life.
And no
one comes
to the
Father
except
through me.
And so
in the
next three
weeks,
Nick and
I and
John,
we're going
to be
unpacking
each one
of those
claims.
Jesus is
the way,
he's the
truth,
and he's
the life.
And as
hard as
it is to
believe that
he is
God,
come to
earth,
the more
you
investigate,
it becomes
harder,
much more
difficult not
to believe
it.
It is,
in fact,
reasonable to
be a
follower of
Jesus in
2026.
And I
invite you,
if you're
someone who
does not
know him,
I'd invite
you to
explore him,
make that as
a massive
priority for
your life
in 2026.
2026.
And if
you do
know him,
to make
a plan to
go deeper
to know
him more
in 2026.
as
Thank you.