God in a Test Tube

When it comes to the issue of God, um, I don't think that you can prove that there is a God, and I don't think you can prove there's not a God. So trying to merely figure out a spiritual being through scientific rationalism, I, I, I don't think that's the place that you would find God. He's not able to be verified in a test tube. And so that can put some people off but many of the things that we say actually give life meaning cannot be verified. You cannot scientifically verify love; you cannot scientifically verify beauty or truth or meaning. And, uh, so instead of just asking, "What is here?" you have to move it into another category, which is a category of philosophy in many ways, which is asking, "Why are we here?" So I, I read a book called, um, Can Man Live Without God? by Ravi Zacharias, and the four big ideas he said was the human heart in order to thrive needs origins, meaning, morality and destiny. Where do we come from? Why are we here? How do we live? And is there life after this one or is this all there is? But the thing that stood out to me that he said was how do we find meaning? And he said in order to find meaning, it takes a few things. Number one, there has to be a profound sense of wonder, and this is normally what we get when we're children. The world's just filled with magic and fantasy and fairy tale. Uh, he said but part of the problem with wonder is at some point, it brushes up against reality, and he said that's when we start to look for the idea of truth. Uh, when we're little kids we get angry when we realize that Santa Claus isn't real, and the Easter Bunny's some bloke from church in a suit. And so we start looking for questions of truth and we lose some of our wonder. But after we feel, you know, go on a search for the quest for truth, uh, we realize that even if we have all the answers, that the heart is terribly lonely and then we normally enter into a quest for love. Who will accept me? Who will give themself to me without reservation? Who will know me and see me and still want me? But then we do find someone that we love, ultimately we start asking the question, how do I find a sense of permanence? Will this last? What a terror that this relationship could end. And so he said that if you look through all of the teachers that have ever lived, you look at all of the philosophies and all the experiences, Jesus best answers the quest for meaning. He gives us a sense of wonder that there is purpose and mystery for the world. He tells us the truth about the brokenness of the human condition, our own sin, but also the truth that we're dearly loved. He enters not just into an agreement, but a relationship with us where he sees us at our worst and loves us anyway. And then he came to give us eternal life, the life of God in the soul of man that we might be with him forever. And when I heard those four things about how Jesus answers that, I thought about everything that I've ever tried to answer those questions with and realized that Jesus does resolve and meet those longings more or better than anybody else.