ONE QUESTION — CAN FAITH AND SCIENCE COEXIST?

We're in a series called One Question.

A couple months ago, I invited you to share with me: if you could ask God a question, what would it be? And so there were a bunch of questions. And what I did is I tried to pick some of the ones that were the most checked, as well as ones that were also, I thought, really interesting — that would be fun to talk about.

And I do love these kinds of questions. I really do — the big questions. You know, I love looking at them from different angles. I like — I love gray. And so I like hearing about the different perspectives. Not because I think that there isn't truth, but because I think that when we hear different perspectives, sometimes it exposes assumptions that we have, or biases that we have, and it helps us to see clearly as we try to figure out what is true.

And that's one of the reasons why we're doing this series. Everybody seems to be telling us, right? Like, what's true, what's most important. And sometimes I think that at least in the church — at least my growing up experience — is that you were shamed a little for asking questions. Believe. Just believe the way we say to believe, you know. And I never was okay with that.

Years ago, I was asked this question: if evidence was presented to me that disproved the resurrection, would I stop believing?

It's a fair question. I had thought about that. I'll be honest, that question bugged me for a long time. Years.

And I always wondered, because I don't think they were asking me a question about the resurrection. What they were really asking me is, "Don, are you actually committed to the truth, or are you just committed to defending what you already believe?" I think that's what the real question was, and it really caused me to think. I wrestled with it.

And over the years, what I realized is this: my belief in Jesus' resurrection — that he died and rose again — is more than something that I just learned in Sunday school. It's more than something that I just heard one day and I believed. That is a belief that by now I have studied, I have questioned. It has become something that is absolutely foundational to my faith, to my life.

And what I also realized is there are really, really smart people — people way smarter than me, who I deeply respect — who have looked at all of the evidence that's available to all of us, and they also believe that Jesus rose from the dead. So I'm not alone.

So I started to realize: if somebody showed me new evidence tomorrow that seemed to disprove the resurrection, my response would not be, "Well, I guess I'm wasting my life. I'm done. This is over." I think what it means is I'd begin to ask some new questions. Some more questions. Maybe the evidence is wrong. Maybe there's a misunderstanding. Maybe it's incomplete. I don't know. Or maybe there are some assumptions or biases or an agenda behind the question that's shaping how the evidence is being presented. I don't know.


THE 42% STATISTIC

For instance, I wanted to give you an example. Did you know that 42% of all the statistics you receive on a daily basis are completely fabricated? 42% — just made up.

Wait. So is that one? I just made it up.

I just made it up. I have absolutely no idea how many of the statistics you hear in a day are fabricated. But because I said it with confidence, most of you — many of you, some of you — were like, "Dang, that's crazy," right? Because confidence makes things believable so often, even when it's completely wrong.

I mean, how many times have I — I want to say "you," but I'll say "me" — you know, you see something on YouTube, and then you see it on TikTok or social media over and over, and it's repeated so many times that you assume it's true because it's all over the place. And then later you find out that it had nothing — it wasn't even real at all. It was just fake the whole time.

And so I feel like that's where so many of us are. You're just wondering what is true, what is important, what is right. I don't know what to believe.

And if that's you — if you're trying to sort through all of the voices, trying to figure out what's true — I'm really glad you came today, because I am not going to tell you what's true, but we are going to enter a discussion. We're going to talk about some things that my hope is will give you some solid handles about trying to figure out truth and what's important.

Now, I might say some things — said this last week too — I might say some things you disagree with. That is okay. I could be wrong. I willingly admit that. What I ask is that you also admit that you could be wrong as well, because we are all still learning. We are all still growing. I am not the same person I was five years ago, ten years ago, and neither are you. If you are, you need to read a book, man. Read something other than what you've been reading, because we need to be growing, right?


THE QUESTION

So what we're going to do is talk today about one of my favorite questions that I've ever been asked: Can faith and science coexist? Can they live together in harmony?

Now, I want to tell you: when I was ten years old, that was when the space shuttle launched for the very first time. And I want you to know, it was a Sunday morning. It was early. It was like 7 a.m., and me and my friends, we woke up early on that Sunday morning.

I lived in Lakeland, Florida — here. And we didn't know if you could see the space shuttle, but the news said that you might be able to. And so, because we had never seen a rocket before, because there hadn't been any in a long time, we woke up, and man, we just hoped we could see it. And we could.

It was a beautiful morning — at least the way I remember it. Ten-year-old memory, who knows. But we could see that little trail going up. And I mean, high fives. It was the coolest thing. When I watched that space shuttle go up from, you know, however many miles away we were, my little ten-year-old life's ambition was that one day I would be on one of those shuttles.

I remember that day so vividly. And my mom and dad, they knew that I had this thing for science, and so they would buy me some books. They bought me a subscription to Discover magazine. Does anybody remember this magazine? I devoured this magazine as a young teenager, mid-teenager.

I fell in love with shows about dinosaurs and outer space. Does anybody remember these two? Is it just me? Land of the Lost. Buck Rogers. There is not one episode of either of these two shows that I haven't seen at least three, four, five times. I mean, I loved these shows. Anybody remember? No? Me? Just me. Okay.

As I was looking for these pictures, joy came into my soul. Is it just me? I was like, "Oh, yeah." I have a feeling if I watched them today, they are just absolutely terrible. But man, to my ten-year-old memory, they were the best things in the world.

I remember when Jurassic Park was released in the theater. I was like 20 years old, 21 years old, something like that. And I saw it nine times in the movie theater. And I didn't go nine times because I'm that much of a nerd — although my wife might say I am. I went nine times because I kept talking to people who were like, "No, I've never seen it." "We need to go. It's the greatest movie I've ever seen." And so I was taking people. I was like the Jurassic Park evangelist. I was taking people to this movie over and over.


THE HUBBLE DEEP FIELD

And it was around that time that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. And there was this one point where they did an experiment: they aimed the Hubble at an empty piece of sky and left it there for about ten days. And the sky, from all appearances, was completely empty. No stars, no nothing.

And they pointed the Hubble at that spot. And this is what they found. Nobody expected this. Like many of you know this — the Hubble Deep Field. And what's really cool is the Webb — the James Webb telescope — redid this, and it looks the same. I mean, no, it's a little clearer, but it's just an amazing, amazing picture.

And what's crazy is that most of the lights in this picture are not stars. They're galaxies. Every point of light that you see — and there are thousands of points of light in this picture — every one of them is a galaxy with billions and billions of stars. And this is the empty spot. The empty spot of space that Hubble was looking at.

When I was young, these were the kind of pictures. These were the TV shows, these things that I watched, these things that I read about. They really caused wonder to stir in me. And they really were formative for who I became and who I was. They gave me perspective about how big the universe is and how much we don't know.

And my young mind was shaped by my curiosity and exploration. And I didn't feel — personally, I mean, I didn't grow up in church or anything like that — I didn't feel threatened by these kinds of discoveries in science. They always had been really special to me. They caused me to think about things. And I realized we were just scratching the surface about what we know and what there is to know.


THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH

When we read Genesis 1, where it says God made the heavens and the earth — let me just make sure of something real quick. Yeah.

When we read Genesis 1 about God making the heavens and the earth, this is usually what we think of. We think of the heavens, you know, the stars — or maybe we have some concept of heaven we're not sure about. But the reality is, when we read Genesis, he talks about making the sun and the moon and the stars and all that kind of stuff. We think "heavens," and then we think "earth," right? These are the pictures that enter our mind: outer space, a blue dot.

But for ancient people, they had never seen this picture before. I mean, think about this. This picture of the earth that we are looking at right now — this is that famous blue dot picture that was taken in 1973. It was 1968 before the very first picture of the globe of the earth had ever been taken, because we had never been far enough away from it to be able to take a picture of it.

So from the beginning of time to 1968, nobody had ever seen that picture. Yet we take it for granted. This is the heavens and the earth.

But for the ancients, this is what they thought: earth is the ground you walked on. It was the dirt. It was the floor. That is earth. And the heavens — that is the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars. They are just attached to the sky right there. And if you build a tower big enough — Babel — you could touch them.

That was their concept. How could they know anything different? They didn't have telescopes. They didn't have rockets. So what they were doing is they pictured the world through what they could see and what they could understand — just like we do. Because a thousand years from now, we're going to look back at these days, and they are going to laugh at what we believe, because they will have tools and they will have technology and they will have things that have shown them so much more than what we have. Right?

So everybody is trying to see the world the best they can with the tools that they have. And as human beings' understanding grew, our picture of the world grew, and it changed. And it still does.

But when we start seeing the world change — or when that starts happening to us, where evidence starts going against how we see the world — often that can make us very uncomfortable. It creates uncertainty. Especially when our view of God is tied to a particular picture of how the world works, of what God is like.

I saw this so dramatically in my own life as a teenager, because that's when I became a follower of Jesus. I didn't grow up in the church, and so most of my childhood and most of my teenage years — or at least my young teenage years — I had no involvement in a church. And so that was really foreign to me.

So when I started attending a youth group and I became a follower of Christ, I still had all of this love. But I started recognizing that science and these things that I loved and that I wondered about so much — these things were leading me to worship, and they were leading me to recognize how big God was. They also seemed to be creating a lot of tension and anxiety in my youth group and in people around me at the church. And I didn't understand. And so I knew how to make a lot of enemies, because I would say stupid things all the time.

But what I've realized over the years is: I don't think it has to be that way. Because if God is true — and I wouldn't be your pastor if I didn't think he was — and if the resurrection is true — and I shared last week about why I am just so convinced that the resurrection happened — if those things are true, then no scientific discovery or theory (not evolution, not the Big Bang, not archaeology, not AI), none of it is going to finally prove that there is no God. It can't. And we're going to talk about that in a minute.

But I will say, these scientific discoveries and theories might threaten our picture of God — the way we think he is — our picture of how the world works. And that might bring some anxiety to us.


JOHN THE BAPTIST: "LOOK AGAIN"

But it also brings us to a character in the New Testament that I wanted to talk about real quick before we jump into some more of this. Because there's a person in the New Testament who had his own picture of how God was supposed to work, and Jesus didn't fit that picture.

We're going to be in the Gospel of Luke, and it tells a story about Jesus. He was well into his ministry. John the Baptist had already baptized Jesus. You know, he had that moment where, when Jesus was coming, he looks to the crowd — John the Baptist does — and goes, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world."

Like, this is how Jesus began his ministry. He had a hype man. "This is the guy who takes away the sin of the world." I mean, that is kind of a crazy thing to have said about you.

Years later, Jesus is in the middle of his ministry. John now is in prison, and he sends some followers to ask Jesus. Look at this real quick — Luke 7. This is what they ask. John's followers are asking for John:

    "Jesus, are you the Messiah we've been expecting, or should we keep looking for someone else?"

John knew Jesus. They were relatives. I mean, he knew Jesus. But he also had a picture. He had a framework of what Messiah was supposed to look like. And Jesus just wasn't fitting that picture.

And so look at what Jesus says to him. He told John's followers, "Go back to John and tell him what you have seen right now and what you have heard."

And then Jesus echoes the Hebrew Scriptures that John knew so well. He says:

    "The blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the good news is being preached to the poor."

I mean, this was classic messianic ideas.

And what I love is Jesus doesn't shame John. He doesn't say, "Stop asking questions and just believe." It's not like that at all. Instead, Jesus says, "Look again. Open up your heart. Open up your mind. Look at what's happening."

And Jesus points John to the evidence that's unfolding right in front of him. And he invites John: Look again. Look again at Scripture. Look again at the experiences that you've had. Look again at the expectations that you have. Look again at what you thought God was supposed to do. Look at it all again in light of Jesus.

I'm not saying just question everything. No, no, no — not at all. I'm saying question it, look at it again, in light of Jesus. Because John's picture of Messiah needed to be reframed.

Jesus never asked John for blind faith. He gave John reasons to trust him. And that is a posture that we see over and over and over in the New Testament.


LUKE: "I INVESTIGATED"

One more passage real quick, because Luke, the one who told us the story, began his gospel saying the same kind of thing. This is what he says in chapter 1:

    "Many people have set out to write accounts about the events of Jesus that have been fulfilled among us."

Lots of people are writing about Jesus. He says in verse 2:

    "They used the eyewitness reports circulating among us from the early disciples."

So, you know, the ones who were actually there when Jesus rose from the dead — most of them, many of them, were still alive at this point. And Luke's like, "Yeah, they go around and they talk and everybody writes it down." And so these writings are going around everywhere. There's all this stuff that's written.

So verse 3: having looked at all of that —

    "Having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I've also decided to write an accurate account for you."

There's a lot of stuff out there. And you gotta love Luke, because he's like, "But I know a lot of these guys." Wink, wink. "You know, I've been traveling with Paul. Oh, I know Peter. John, he's just down the road." You know what I mean? So Luke's like, "I know the real scoop. Let me write an accurate account for you." He's saying, "I did the research. I investigated what happened. And here's what I found."

And if John and if Luke weren't afraid to wrestle with questions of faith, why should we?

It gives us permission to go, "Okay. We don't have to get nervous when people start asking questions about science and faith." And I mean, it could challenge us. It can be uncomfortable, no doubt. But if Jesus really rose from the dead, we have nothing to fear, because his resurrection is the foundation of our faith. Not our scientific theories. Not our different denominations. Not all of the millions of beliefs that we all have and hold and hold dear.

The resurrection is the foundation of our faith. Amen.


FRANCIS COLLINS

Okay, so I want to introduce you to a man named Francis Collins. He's not here. He's too big. But I have a picture. So this is Francis Collins.

He's one of the most influential geneticists in the world. This is the guy who led the historic Human Genome Project about two decades ago, where they mapped out the entire DNA of the human body. He also served as director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health for three different presidents — for 12 years. It was a long time.

And as a young doctor, Collins was an atheist. One of his patients one time, though, challenged him about what he believed about the big questions of life. And as they were talking, it got Collins very curious. And so he accepted the challenge, and he began looking at the evidence for God. And he truly expected that the deeper he got, the more it would strengthen his atheism.

And eventually — especially through the writings of C.S. Lewis (if you've never read Mere Christianity, it's just a good one) — through C.S. Lewis he encountered Jesus and eventually chose to follow him.

This is what he told CNN. I just think this is fantastic. He said that science can answer a lot of questions, but:

    "I have to admit that science, that I love so much, was powerless to answer questions such as: What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? If the universe has a beginning, who created it? And why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow for the complexity of life?"

I mean, these are the questions that he was just realizing he can't answer with science. Because science can tell us a great deal about how the universe works — but not why it exists. Not why it matters.

And so, since that time when he was a young doctor, he has spent much of his life fostering conversations about the intersection of faith and science. He even created an organization called BioLogos, which you can go see online. It's pretty amazing.

For Dr. Collins, science and faith are not enemies. They are different fields trying to answer different questions to discover what is true.


THE BOILING POT

Now, here's what I want you to imagine. You're standing with two people over a boiling pot of water. You ask those two people, "Why is it boiling?"

And one of them says, "It's boiling because the water is being heated by the flame below the kettle, and the kettle is conducting the heat from that flame into the water, and the water is getting hotter because the molecules are moving faster and faster and faster until it boils."

That is true. Thank you very much, sir.

You ask the other person, "Why is it boiling?" They answer, "I just wanted some coffee."

Also true.

Same question. Two very different answers. Because the first assumed that the question being asked was, "What is causing the water to boil?" But the second person was assuming the question was, "Who is causing it to boil, and why?" I turned on the heat because I wanted coffee. And isn't that the greatest reason to boil water in the world? For coffee.

But see, that right there — that struggle, that tension between those two questions being in the same question — that's the main difference between faith and science.

Because science typically asks questions about — you can go to — yeah, thank you — what we can observe and how things work. Science is so great if you're wanting to answer questions like: What caused the dinosaurs to go extinct? Science is a great place to find those answers. How does electricity work? I don't think anybody knows, but just in case we do, science is where you're going to find that. When did human beings first appear in history?

Those are great science questions, where you can get our tools, and you can get microscopes and telescopes and tests and all this stuff, and you can try to come up with the best answers for these questions.

But the Bible wasn't primarily written to answer those kinds of questions. The biblical writers were much more interested in questions about purpose and meaning. Questions like: Who is behind all of this? And why did God create it? And is God good? And what makes something good? And why do human beings even matter? And what does God want to do in this world? And what does God want to do in me?

There is no microscope that can answer those kinds of questions. There is no math formula for purpose.

See, the biblical writers use different kinds of tools to answer their questions. They don't use microscopes. I mean, they use their eyes as much as they can. They don't have the technology that we have. They can't get down to the little teeny things. But the tools that they use are powerful. They use tools like poetry and wisdom and story and metaphor.

The biblical writers — their desire is to shape our imagination. They tell a story of purpose and value and meaning and God. A story that makes sense of what we see in the world. Because we see things in the world, but it doesn't make sense. Where is it going? What's happening? Why is this here? And who cares?

If you want to know how old the earth is, go ask a geologist. They're going to give you way better information than I'm going to give you. But if you want to know why the earth matters, and if you want to know why we should take care of it, and why human beings matter, and who the Creator is — well, I'm telling you right now, that is where Scripture excels. And that is where faith excels.

Science is not the enemy of faith. I guess it can be, when people pit these things together. But science does not have to be the enemy of faith. Science and faith can be partners in the pursuit of truth, because they are both trying to answer the question: What is real?

For Francis Collins, he loves studying the what and the how. He specializes in genetics, in understanding diseases and then using that knowledge to make the world better, to heal these diseases. For him, he sees it as a calling, and it leads him to worship the one who made this immense, complex and intricate world we live in.

And for me, the more I study — and I do, I am a nerd, you know, and I follow the James Webb website, and when they release new pictures, they often come across my feed, and I love that — when I see these pictures, they cause me to wonder and worship. I mean, the more we discover, the deeper we go, the more I am amazed at the creativity and intricate design of God. And it leads me to worship.


WHEN YOUR FRAMEWORK IS CHALLENGED

But this question actually is bigger than science and faith. Because what do you do when the framework that you have is being challenged?

I mean, not just in science and faith. But even with your kids — maybe your child starts asking questions that you don't know how to answer. Or maybe marriage doesn't look anything like you expected it to, and you're starting to feel threatened because what you thought is not reality anymore.

Maybe somebody you love walks away from faith, or a Christian leader deeply disappoints you, and you realize you can never have the faith you used to. You've seen too much. It's hurt too much. Things have to change. And it's so scary, and you don't know what to do.

Maybe suffering — your own, or somebody that you love — the suffering doesn't fit the God that you thought you understood. Or you discover that Christians you deeply, deeply respect read Scripture differently than you. Maybe you're feeling that way right now because of this message. Could be true.

What do you do?

See, John the Baptist gives us the picture. Don't panic. Don't become defensive. Don't stop asking questions. Look again. Come to Jesus. Look at the evidence. Look at the Scriptures. Look at your assumptions.

But always come back to Jesus.

Always come back to Jesus, because if something that you see or experience seems to conflict with what you understand in Scripture, don't simply reject it with a knee-jerk reaction. Don't assume science is a conspiracy that's always trying to get you to believe stuff just because they want to — you know, that it's a tool of the enemy. But also don't assume Scripture's outdated and isn't important anymore.

What I'm saying is, when the tension rises and you have that anxiety, pause. Breathe a little bit. Maybe, just maybe, your interpretation, your understanding, needs another look. Maybe the evidence is really a mess over here on the science side, and you just wait. Give it time. Give it generations. Give it a thousand years. Who knows? Somebody will find more information. Or maybe you've just been reading the Bible poorly. Maybe you are in a tradition where this is one of the things that are a problem. I don't know.

Slow down. John the Baptist did. Maybe reality isn't threatening God. Maybe it's just challenging your picture of God. And that's okay, because I have a feeling all of our pictures of God are too small. I mean, God is big, and we all put him in a box.

And so just to say: "Lord, I don't know what's true right now, but I trust you. Show me what the truth is." And stay humble, and stay curious, because there is still so much that we don't know.

Scientific arrogance is foolish, but so is religious arrogance. It's equally foolish. Curiosity and humility — they belong together. And when we seek with open hands, what we find can lead us to God. And it can lead us to worship. It can lead us to practice wonder.

Allow what you see in creation to lead you to know the Creator.


EARENDEL

I want you to look at this picture real quick. This is from — it was found by Hubble, but the picture we're looking at is from the James Webb telescope.

For all of human history — however long people have been around — we didn't know that that little red circled star existed. We recently found it. But God knew it was there. God was just sitting out there going, "Earendel, you're just one cute little star. Nobody can see you. But it's okay. You're my cute little star."

I mean, God was out there. God created that. We didn't even know it was there. He was just enjoying it. Because we discovered it in 2022.

This star is 13 billion light-years from Earth. That means the light that we just took a picture of in 2022 — that little teeny star — that is from 13 billion years ago. That is when time was basically in its infancy. This is the farthest star that we have ever seen. The farthest star that has ever been seen by human eyes.

I mean, that kind of puts God into perspective, doesn't it? God is big. He is big, because he's there right now, and he's here. And we're invited to know that God — the God who creates a universe that is unfathomably big and at the same time unimaginably small.

Would you go show the next slide? This blows me away.

The picture on top is what you learned in science class. Remember how you did the little sticks and you created the atoms, and that was like a molecule? Well, now, of course, because we are people who are crazy geniuses in so many ways, we can take pictures of actual atoms. And that molecule that's at the top, created in a middle school science room — that's what it actually looks like in real life, below. That's the actual molecule.

Dennis cracked me up. He said, "Do you have a better picture? It's blurry." I'm like, "No, that's what it really looks like." The electrons — it's blurry. It's like that. That is it. This is the actual molecule.

So the farther out we look, and the deeper in we look, the more we discover — and the more astonishing it is, what we find. And the more amazed I am by the God who is behind this all.

I mean, galaxies and cells and DNA. Human consciousness. Love, beauty, sacrifice. And somehow the God who is behind all of this became one of us to save us.

I don't understand. I don't understand. But I worship God.

I am not worthy. Why do you deem me worthy? And he does. He says, "You're worthy. You're worthy to me. You have utmost value to me."


EVIDENCE IS NOT THE DESTINATION

I want to invite the worship team to come up. I also want to invite the prayer team to come up. But I'm going to invite you not to stand, because we're going to sit during the song. I just want to invite you to be on the front row, prayer team — that way you're there if people want to come, even during the song. But after the service, they can come up as well and pray together.

But there's one more step I wanted to share with you before we go. Because evidence — all of the things that we see — isn't faith. For John the Baptist, who is in prison hearing the evidence from Jesus, that's not faith. That's just evidence.

Evidence can convince us something is true. But faith is what happens when we actually respond to what is true. It's when we put our trust in Jesus.

So you can believe Jesus lived, and you can believe that he died, and you can even be convinced that Jesus rose from the dead — and not follow him.

Jesus never said, "Believe my arguments." That was never the call. He said, "Follow me. Become like me. Let me transform you from the inside out."

See, we can investigate science and we can investigate Jesus forever. And we can get on YouTube debates, and we can fight with our friends and our enemies all day long, and we can read the books and listen to the podcasts and ask the questions. And I think Avalon needs to be a safe place where the questions can be asked.

But eventually, Jesus' invitation isn't "know more and understand more." It's "Follow me." Because evidence is not the destination. Jesus is.

And so if you've become convinced that Jesus is trustworthy, the next step isn't simply to find out more things about him. That is the temptation in our Western culture. Now Jesus is saying, "Invite me. Invite me, and trust your life to me. Receive the life that I died and rose again so that you could experience." And then join him. He's like, "Join me in my work in the world, so that the kingdom of God — the way that I meant for the world to be — is on earth the way it is in heaven. Follow me. Become like me. I will do the work. I just need you to have open hands. I just need you to be humble and say, 'I follow you. Where you lead, I will follow. I'll take the step.'"

I mean, that's the call. We can know all the good stuff. We can know all about faith and science. But it doesn't matter if we don't know Jesus.


PRAYER

Let's pray together.

Jesus, I want to pray right now. There's probably a lot of people who grew up in traditions either that were more like not trusting in anything religious, or people who grew up not trusting anything about science. And the reality is, we can miss you in the midst of all of that.

And so what I pray, Lord, is that for all of us — even people who have grown up in the church, and maybe people who, this is their first time ever being in a church — I pray that you will clearly present yourself to them today, and give every single person in this room the courage to follow you and to accept that invitation to entrust their life to you.

Even for me, Jesus. Help me to follow you. For all of us.

It's the scariest and the hardest thing. Yet when we come to you with open hands, what we find is that you give us life like we never could have understood or experienced it. What we find is that what we're giving you is death, and you're giving us life. And it is the greatest trade in the history of the world.

So Jesus, I pray that you will help us in this room pray a prayer that's something like: "Lord, I know you died for me. I know you rose again. Despite all of the questions I have, I trust you. I follow you. Make me more and more just like you."

In Jesus' name, amen.


BENEDICTION

There's that line: "On a hill you created, the Light of the World abandoned in darkness to die."

And I was just thinking — by the people you created, too. You created this hill where you died. You created this people who are the ones who killed you, on the hill that you created. And you did it all because you loved them. You loved the people that you created, and the creation that you created. And you said, "I want to make all things right."

That is a good, good God. And I'm very grateful.

All right, let me close with this benediction.

Lord, we pray that as we go about our lives, that you would give us the courage of John the Baptist — the courage to bring you our hard questions and even our doubts. Give us eyes to see what is true, and humility to recognize that we have so much to learn. And give us faith to trust you even before we have all the answers. Because our faith is not in good arguments. Our faith is in you, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

And the congregation, we all said: Amen.

Have a beautiful week.