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THE CHRISTIAN ATHEIST

WHEN YOU BELIEVE IN GOD BUT DON’T REALLY KNOW HIM

Sunday January 7, 2018

Scripture Reference: James 2:1-13, 19-20

“My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious

Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others? 2 For example, suppose

someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive

jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. 3 If you

give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor

one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, 4 doesn’t this

discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? 5 Listen to

me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be

rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to

those who love him? 6 But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress

you and drag you into court? 7 Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ,

whose noble name you bear? 8 Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal

law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 9 But if you

favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of

breaking the law. 10 For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as

guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws. 11 For the same God who

said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” So if

you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law.

12 So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by

the law that sets you free. 13 There will be no mercy for those who have not

shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when

he judges you…19 You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God.

Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How

foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? James 2:1-13,

19-20 (NLT)

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Intro.

A. Happy New Year everyone! Well sadly the holiday season is now over and we

move into this New Year. I don’t know how you are feeling about 2018, but I for one am

very excited. Frankly 2017, while it certainly had its good days, was probably not one of

the greatest years for me, but I believe 2018 will be much different. I don’t want to get

into all the reasons why because then I won’t have time to share this message, but let’s

just say I am on my tip toes trying to see what all God might have instore for us here at

Cornerstone.

B. Today I am beginning a new sermon series that will lead us up to Easter. It is a

longer series than I normally do, but unless God changes things I will be preaching this

series up to Palm Sunday. Actually this is a series I had planned to do last year at this

time but God led in a different direction. Actually that was just the beginning of God

messing up my sermon schedule for 2017. Just kidding of course. As you have been

seeing for several weeks now this series is entitled “The Christian Atheist”. It sounds

like a contradiction of words but I think the phrase holds quite true. I think that every

one of us at some point and in fact at various points of our spiritual life act like Christian

Atheists. What I mean by this is that we say that there are things we believe about God

and our relationship with Him, but then we end up living the opposite of what we

profess to believe. Some of the things we will look at is how we say we believe in

prayer but then we don’t pray. We will talk about how we say we believe God has a

wonderful plan for our lives and then get mad at Him when our plan isn’t working out.

We will talk about how we say we believe in God but then worry all the time.

1. You know we can really treat every one of these services like an AA meeting,

because today if I am to be totally honest I have to say, “Hello my name is Sheldon

Boyd and I am a Christian Atheist.” To quote Pastor Rick again, “Revealing is the

beginning of healing” and that is what I want for all of in this series. I think we will still

stumble and fall a few times along this journey, but I also believe there is a way for us

to act more like a Christian than an atheist most of the time and I intend to show us how

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in the coming weeks so I hope you will plan to join us for as many of these messages

as you can and if you miss you can always find them on our web site or phone app.

Trans. Today I want to speak to you about how we practice Christian Atheism when we

say we believe in God but don’t really know him.

I. WHEN WE BELIEVE IN GOD BUT DON’T REALLY KNOW HIM.

I have spoken to this many times over the years I have been your pastor. In fact I

addressed this issue in my Christmas series. What I am talking about is that:

A. There Is A Big Difference Between Believing And Knowing.

1. A recent Gallup poll showed that 94% of American’s say that they believe in God.

Now that can be a heartening statistic until you begin to look around and then you

quickly discover that if this statistic is true then my series title is also true because there

must be an awful lot of Christian Atheist, because we are certainly not seeing the

evidence of 94% of our population acting as if they really believe in God. So what is the

problem here? Why is it if 94% of our population says they believe in God, why aren’t

we seeing what should be the dramatic effects of that in our society? I would suggest it

is because many of these people do not understand the difference between, believing

and knowing.

2. Once again you have heard me say many times that believing in God is not

merely an intellectual assent. In other words believing in God is much more than

acknowledging His existence as so many do. Believing as it is described in the Bible is

knowing because the word to “know” in the bible describes intimacy. What this means

is that for a lot of people their belief in God is not based on a relationship it is based on

some information. They might know about God because of friends who are Christians,

maybe someone like you. They have seen evidence of God in your life and enough so

that they have a belief in God. Maybe this person has even been to church and more

than just Christmas and Easter. They have attended Sunday school or heard a number

of sermons so that they have enough evidence to make them say “I believe in God” but

it is all based on information. It is like a lot of people when it comes to celebrities.

Maybe you have a favorite football or baseball player and you follow them closely and

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you know a lot about their lives, but you only know them through information, but not

intimately.

3. To move from being a Christian Atheist means I need to know God intimately. I

need to know him not through mere knowledge, but by a personal relationship and this

is the relationship God wants for us and He proved it be sending Jesus to be our

Savior. To know God intimately is to seek Him daily. It is to hunger and thirst for Him. It

is to move to the place in our lives where we recognize His voice when He speaks to

us. Jesus said that his sheep would hear his voice and know him.

4. So my first question to you today would be this, “Do you just believe in God or do

you know God”. And yes we can know God, here is what the Bible says, “I have

written this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may

know you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13 (NLT)

B. Believing In God Isn’t All He Wants From Us.

1. Some people and very likely some of those in your Oikos will say, “Well I believe

in God isn’t that enough?” “Isn’t that what God wants from me after all that’s what John

3:16 says to do?” The hard fact is believing is not enough and we saw this from the

scripture I read as we began today. Let me share it again. “You say you have faith,

for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe

this, and they tremble in terror. 20 How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without

good deeds is useless?”

2. Now the easiest thing to do here for a Christians Atheist is to say, “Well I do good

things.” “Doesn’t that prove my belief is real?” No it doesn’t. The true is there are a lot

of “Cultural Christians”. What is that you ask? To be cultural means that I am behaving

in a certain way, based on beliefs and customs of a certain society and in this case the

society of Christian faith. Being a cultural Christian means that I am doing the things

that are expected of someone who belongs to this Christian faith, but here is the

problem with Cultural Christianity. It just means I know how to follow the rule book.

When we begin to learn what it means to live in a loving intimate relationship with God

we will still do these good deeds the Bible speaks of, but what changes is our attitude.

It is no long about “what” I do but “why” I do it. [] It is like the difference between being

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married and having an intimate loving relationship with someone. There is no rule book

for marriage and there never should be. Marriage ought to be about an intimately loving

relationship between two people. We do what we do for each other out of our love for

each other not because the rule book says we have to. Certainly God wants us doing

good things for others, but the fact that you live a positive lifestyle does not make you a

Christian. It just makes you a good person and that is OK, but it doesn’t get you to

Heaven.

C. Maybe We “Sort Of” Know God.

1. Maybe there was actually a time in our lives when we prayed and asked God to

forgive us of our sins and be our savior, but we didn’t take that relationship seriously

and we didn’t go deeper. You wouldn’t be the first, in fact let me read to you about

some others who did this very thing. Here are the words of the Apostle Paul to the

church in Galatia. “Before you Gentiles knew God, you were slaves to so-called

gods that do not even exist. 9 So now that you know God (or should I say, now

that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once

more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world? 10 You are trying

to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or

years.” Galatians 4:8-10 (NLT) Paul shows us that these people had one time

committed their lives to God but now they are acting like Christian Atheists. Instead of

growing closer in their relationship with God they are pulling away. They are acting like

there are things they need to earn or deserve God’s grace in their lives. Just the way a

lot of Christian Atheists sometime behave.

2. I see here something I spoke of in my Christmas series. It is that difference

between confession and repentance. We may be admitted that we were wrong and that

God was right about us, but our actions didn’t square with what we said.

Trans. To leave behind this Christian Atheism we need to:

D. Know God Intimately.

1. To know God intimately is to become more aware of God in our lives not just on

Sundays at church but on a daily on going basic. Knowing God intimately means

becoming more aware that God is my provider, He is my peace, it is being more aware

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of His Presence with me. It is not that sense that God is “Out there somewhere” but that

He lives within me. To know Him intimately is to begin to hear that still small voice that

the Bible speaks of. It is to hear that voice when I pray, when I read the Bible and even

while I’m, driving down the road in the middle of the day. [] I won’t go into specifics but I

heard this voice a few weeks back about something I felt God telling me He wanted me

to do. In a practical sense what I felt impressed to do seems dumb, but when you have

walked with God for a while you begin to recognize the voice of God and the voice of

late night pizza.

2. Now knowing God intimately does not mean that I will always feel His presence.

People like David, Abraham, Moses and others had those times when it didn’t seem

that God was there, but that is when we learn to live by faith and not by sight or senses.

It means we know God is real and that He made a promise to never leave me or

forsake me so I will not let my feelings dictate what is real in my life.

Trans. Let me ask you what I think is a very important question.

E. What Do You Call God?

1. David said this, “Those who know your name trust in you, for you, O LORD,

do not abandon those who search for you.” Psalm 9:10 (NLT) How you refer to God

may tell how much or how little you actually know him. Let me illustrate. I am known by

several names and it is not because I am avoiding the law with a bunch of aliases.

Some people know me and Mr. Boyd. They are usually sales people who call on the

phone. When someone calls me that I know right away they don’t really know me they

just know my name. I lot of people including many of you know me as pastor. For many

of you I am called pastor as a sign of respect for the position I hold. Our former mayor

used to refer to me as “Sky Pilot”. Some people know me as Sheldon, but I have a few

names that are reserved for a very few in my life. I have two girls that call me dad, but

then I have one very special girl who calls me grandpa.

2. You see what we call someone reveals the level of intimacy in our relationship.

So what do you call God? For some people He is “The man upstairs”, for some He is

“The Big guy”. How do you know Him? Depending on the time you may have walked

with God what you call him varies. To you He might be Healer because of what He has

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done for you physically. He might be Provider because of the many ways He has meet

needs in your life. If your relationship is new He is probably called Savior, which of

course He is to all of us who know Him in the biblical sense.

Conclusion

A. it is time for us to be honest with ourselves and God. Do you believe in God? If

you do that’s great, but you are not any closer to God than the very demons of hell

because they too believe in God. My guess is that just about everyone on your Oikos

list believes in God, but why are they on your list? They are on that list because they

believe but they don’t know Him.

1. Knowing God is a transforming experience. I talked about this back on Christmas

Sunday. If we really know God then what is different about our lives? You see people

that believe in God just keep on going on with their lives as before, nothing really

changes, but knowing God by a personal relationship through Jesus Christ transforms

us. The bible says we are new creations. Once again this is not reformation or

rehabilitation, it is transformation. We are not turning over a new leaf we are getting a

brand new start. This new start is in Christ and if we want to have a deep and

meaningful relationship with God then we are required to begin spending more time

with Him and learning what it means to, as the bible says, “Walk worth of our calling”.

B. I want to be clear today. My purpose is not to have you question your salvation if

you have in fact given your life to Christ. Instead my desire is to confirm that

relationship. I also shared this scripture during my Christmas series, “I have written

this to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you

have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13 (NLT)

1. I realize that sometimes the doubts we feel are put there by our enemy the Devil,

but I also know that the Bible tells me this, “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit

that we are God's children.” Romans 8:16 (NIV)

2. Do you know? Do you have this testimony? If not it can be yours today. Maybe

for you today you do know, but you also know your level of intimacy with God is not

what it could be or should be. You know there are still those off limit areas of your life

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for God that have yet to be surrendered. Maybe for you today it is not about becoming

a Christian it is about not being a Christian Atheist. PRAYER