Matt Colby - Reasons to Believe - Class 6 - Reasons to Believe

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   In 1964, a group of well known psychologists performed a famous experiment. They recruited university students as participants and and the students were told that they were going to be participating in discussions about subjects that that were relevant to them as students. And each one of the participants was put into a small room.

2. 0:29

   Nobody else was in the room, There were no windows. There was a microphone in front of them and a speaker on the wall and they were to be involved and participate in a conversation in this way. So their microphone would be turned on for two minutes when it was their turn to speak, and then it would be cut off and they’d have to listen to the other participants speak. And the conversations were to take place in groups of between 2:00 and 6:00, varying sizes.

3. 0:58

   Unknown to the participants, every single person in this study was the only real live person in the conversation. So, for example, if there were supposed to be 6 people in this conversation, then there was one real person, and all the other voices of the other five people were simply recordings.

4. 1:20

   So in every case, in the first round of discussion, one of the other people in the conversation, which was we know but they didn’t know, a pre recorded voice would say I’m prone to severe epileptic fits. So severe that that if I have one that’s bad enough I could die. And then the next time the conversation came around to that same voice, they would start to have a seizure and they’d say, this is a bad one, this is it. I I think I’m going to die.

5. 1:54

   I’m dying. Please help me. Somebody please go find help. And the point of the study was to see how many of the participants actually left the booth to go find help. And the results were shocking. Only 31% of the participants actually left the booth to find help. You see, this was known as the bystander apathy experiment, and the point of it was to try to figure out why it is that. So often we’ll see a group of people standing around somebody who needs help for whatever reason. They’re in trouble and people will. Everyone will stand around and do nothing. Nobody helps.

6. 2:40

   Why? Psychologist wanted to know. Why does this happen? It’s called bystander apathy. Or perhaps the most illuminating part of the experiment was this that for those people who thought that they were the only other person in the conversation, this was supposed to be, in their case, a conversation with just two people. 85% of those people left the booth to go find help.

7. 3:06

   And psychologists learned a number of things from from this experiment, and some phrases in psychology were coined. One of them was this diffusion of responsibility.

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   If there’s a group of people and you’re standing in that group and you see that something is wrong and somebody needs to act, well, if there are a lot of people around, then you think perhaps somebody else will help. I don’t need to do anything. There are a lot of people here. So you don’t feel as responsible for the situation because there are a lot of people there.

9. 3:42

   Another phrase that was coined as pluralistic ignorance. So you look at the situation, it looks bad. It looks like this person needs help. But the fact that there are other people standing around watching the same thing happen suggests to you that maybe I’m wrong, nobody else is doing anything. So maybe I’m wrong about the severity of the situation.

10. 4:00

    Maybe it’s not as bad as I think. And the two things that psychologists learn from from these discoveries are this That feeling like you’re not important, like nothing you do really matters, leads to laziness. It can be a comfortable feeling in the moment because you don’t feel that burden of responsibility on your shoulders, but it never ends up that way when you reflect on it. You end up feeling guilty in the long run when you realize you should have done something and you didn’t. And the other thing we learned from this experiment is that what we call apathy, not taking responsibility when you should take responsibility for something is in a sense contagious.

11. 4:48

    If you’re surrounded by people who are also apathetic, then you’ll tend to feel that way as well. We talk about apathy. Apathy is defined as a loss of fundamental hope that personal happiness or fulfilment is possible. Or put another way, it’s when we lose faith in our ability to achieve our goals. And so apathy is very much connected with the strength of our faith, whatever that faith might be in, but especially that faith and our own ability to achieve our goals.

12. 5:23

    And I’m sure all of us in this room have found ourselves in a state like this before. If you’re like me, you found yourself in this dark place where you wonder if it’s even worth getting up in the morning and and there are a number of reasons why you may find yourself in this mental condition. You might have negative thoughts about yourself or your prospects and maybe you’re afraid to act because of fear that you might fail, maybe because of recent failures on your part. And so you think, why bother?

13. 5:53

    I’m just going to fail again. Or maybe something has happened, Something bad has happened to you or a loved one. Or maybe on a global scale, you look at the events of the world and and it just makes you feel like nothing you do will ever make a difference, makes you feel powerless, and you ask why even bother? Or maybe you just get burnt out.

14. 6:16

    You’ve worked and worked to achieve your goals and it feels like you’re actually not making progress at all. You’re you’re taking two steps back for everyone. Step forward and and you just resign yourself to a lifetime of tedium. There are a number of reasons why we can find ourselves in this mental condition, and there’s a book in the Bible that’s written by somebody who was very much struggling with apathy.

15. 6:42

    I’d like you to turn with me to the book of Ecclesiastes. And we’re going to start in Ecclesiastes chapter one. And many people believe that Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon in large part because of verse one of Ecclesiastes chapter one. It says the words of the preacher, the son of David king in Jerusalem.

16. 7:05

    So here’s a man who says was the son of David who was also a king in Jerusalem. But interestingly, the the writer of Ecclesiastes is never specifically named. He’s just referred to as as the preacher. In the Hebrew, the word is kohala. Over and over again the preacher is referred to, and regardless of whether or not Solomon actually wrote this book, and he may well have, I think one thing that we can know for fairly certain is that it was intended to be written from the point of view of King Solomon. But interestingly, the book contains A-frame of a narrator who must have come along and and discovered this writing and and written sort of a preface and a prologue to it. And you notice that in the first chapter you notice that the 1st 11 verses of chapter one are written in the third person and then and then in verse 12 of chapter one it switches to the first person.

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    You see verse 12, it starts out I the preacher. But up to that point it’s talking in the third person about the preacher and in those first 11 verses of Ecclesiastes chapter one. The The editor of this book who wrote this preface describes the mindset of the preacher.

18. 8:21

    I’m going to start reading a verse 2 Vanity of Vanities, says the Preacher. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils? Under the sun? A generation goes and a generation comes, but the Earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises.

19. 8:43

    The wind blows to the South and goes around to the north. Around and around goes the wind, and on it circuits. The wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full to the place where the streams flow. There they flow again. All things are full of weariness. A man cannot utter it.

20. 9:02

    The eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing which it is said, see, this is new. It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.

21. 9:28

    And the mindset of the Preacher is that why bother doing anything? It will all come to nothing. In the end, nothing really matters. It’s all been done before, so why even try? And if you were to read the 1st 11 Verses of Ecclesiastes chapter 2, you’ll get the story of how the Preacher came to this point. We won’t read those all those verses for the sake of time, but but he says due to his due to his position and his wealth and his power, he partook in all of the things that the world had to offer.

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    And at the end of it, this is what he found in verse 11 of Ecclesiastes chapter two, he said. Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended and doing it, and behold, all was vanity and striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. I did it all, and I felt empty.

23. 10:30

    At the end. I didn’t feel fulfilled at all. I did everything that anybody could hope to do in this life, and I still felt empty. And if you go on to read the rest of the book of Ecclesiastes, you don’t find much hope there. It’s all pretty depressing, the preacher going on at length about how pointless everything is. But in the next chapter, in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, there’s a key to everything, I think in those opening verses of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 is that famous passage where the preacher talks about how God has said everything perfectly in its place and there’s a time and a place for everything and he comes to.

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    Or we come to verse nine of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, which says what gain has the worker from his toil. I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

25. 11:41

    Now I’m reading from the ESV. If you’re reading from the King James, you may have. I think he’s put the world into their heart. The word for eternity or the world is in the Hebrew Hola. It has multiple meanings in the Hebrew, just like in our language. Like many words that we find in the Hebrew, it depends on the context as to what it truly means.

26. 12:04

    You may have come across this word oh long before it actually often talks about the end of an age or an era. It can mean several other things. It can mean the world or it can mean ignorance. But eternity by far, is the most common translation of this world, and it fits the context best.

27. 12:20

    Here the preacher said that God has put eternity into the heart of man. We exist in this reality where everything passes away, where the law of entropy holds true. Everything is in the state of deteriorating into its base or parts. We will eventually die, everything will eventually fade away. But inside of us we have this yearning for something eternal.

28. 12:51

    Sometimes it’s subconscious, and that’s why sometimes you’ll hear somebody, maybe even who’s an atheist and doesn’t believe in God, but they’ll still say there must be something more to life than this. This is a characteristic that separates us from the animals we yearn for something eternal. And This is why sometimes you’ll you’ll hear reports of some famous person who had all the money and fame that anybody could ever wish for, and they overdose in a hotel room somewhere and kill themselves and you think they had everything. Why would they end it all suddenly, prematurely, like this?

29. 13:33

    Because, like the preacher, they had experienced everything the world had to offer and found out it wasn’t enough and they still yearn for something else. They said there’s got to be more to life than this, and they never feel fulfilled. And they’ve seen and experienced it all, and they still feel empty and in the preachers, exhaustive research he has uncovered Nothing in this earthly realm that can satisfy the human heart, intellectually or practically.

30. 14:04

    And the very nature of our state can defeat us in this way as we yearn for something greater. But we’re stuck in this current reality, and this is what we call apathy.

31. 14:19

    That feeling like nothing we do matters. Why even bother to try? But we here in this room are fortunate because we’ve been given the key to defeat it. Now, I want to say now, as we talk about some things that the Bible tells us is going to happen in the future, that when the Bible talks about the future, it often uses sign and symbol and metaphor to describe what it’s going to be like in that future era when Jesus returns to the earth.

32. 14:50

    And maybe you’ve asked the question, why does it have to speak symbolically? It makes it difficult to understand. Why not just use plain language? And the answer is the future that we read about, that God has planned for this earth. We have no frame of reference to understand it. We’ve never seen anything like it. Things will be much different than they are now. We don’t have the language to describe it, and it’s only through the use of symbols and metaphors that we can talk about a future that contains things that we’ve never seen before, that no one has seen before.

33. 15:21

    All of our language about the future is is like a signpost that’s pointing into a bright mist. We know where we need to go. But the future, it’s like, to put another way, Biblically, it’s like looking into a glass starkly, or as the ESV translates it into a mirror, dimly. The mirrors that they had and and New Testament times were not made out of glass like the mirrors we have today. They were made out of polished metal. If you’ve ever seen your reflection in polished metal, you know that it’s not a perfect reflection. It’s all distorted.

34. 15:53

    You can sort of make out yourself in the reflection, but it it doesn’t look anything like reality. And that’s what that coming age will be like. So come with me to 1st Corinthians chapter 15. We can only begin to describe this future, but we have to describe it using sign and symbol, and I think it’s so exciting that that is the case in First Corinthians chapter 15.

35. 16:22

    We went to this passage a number of times in our classes. This weekend, the Apostle Paul is dealing with the problem in the Corinthian Ecclesia. It would seem that some people in the Ecclesia are teaching that there’s not going to be a resurrection from the dead, and the Apostle Paul addresses that with a well thought out argument.

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    He says if there’s no resurrection from the dead, then Jesus was not raised from the dead, and if Jesus was not raised from the dead, then there’s no forgiveness of sins. And if there’s no forgiveness of sins that everything we’re doing is pointless. We’re just going to die eventually and it will be for nothing.

37. 16:54

    And we’re going to pick up in verse 20 of First Corinthians chapter 15, where Paul is in the middle of his description of what things are actually right. Like after making that eloquent argument, and Paul writes, but in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

38. 17:18

    For by a man came death, as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order. Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Now there are two things I want to focus on in this passage, And the first one is this.

39. 17:40

    Did you notice that in two cases in those verses that we read, Paul refers to Jesus as the first fruits? And this is a term that may not immediately have meaning for us, but we can understand it. It would have meant a lot to people in at that time. And of course, we have farming today. So we can still understand it.

40. 17:59

    You see a farmer, when a crop was first, the first of that crop grew up and they were able to harvest it or pluck it, whatever the case may be, they would take the first of that crop, the first fruits of the crop into the city and they would set up their market stall and people would come and buy of the first fruits from that farmer, the first fruits of his crop. And if the crop was good, if the fruits were good, then that was proof that the rest of the crop was going to be good too. And you would continue to go back to that farmers market stall and buy from him because it had been proven that that this season the crop is going to be a good one. But of course conversely, if if it’s bad, then you’ll find somewhere else to shop.

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    Now also the first fruits of the crop tended to be the very best of the crop. And So what the Apostle Paul is saying when he uses this this word to describe Jesus, He says Jesus is the first fruits from the dead. He was the first human being to be raised from the dead and given an incorruptible body. He was the first of the crop of humanity. And he’s proof that God can and will raise people from the dead because we saw it happen with Jesus the first fruits. And over and above that he is also the very best of us. The other thing I wanted to focus on in these verses is is 1 particular word in verse 23 it says about the resurrection that each will be resurrected in his own order, Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. And we often talk about the second coming of Jesus and it’s we we say that it’s it’s based upon verses like this one, Christ at his Coming, the second coming of Christ. In the Greek the word for coming is Perusia. And Paul and a number of the other apostles who were very, very clever, cleverly used this word, commandeered this word to be used in Christian thought because before they ever used it to describe the coming of Jesus, it already had two different meanings in non Christian thought. So the word Perusia.

42. 20:17

    Before this time could be used to describe the the mysterious presence of a God or a divinity, particularly when the power of that God or divinity is revealed within an act of healing and people suddenly become aware of a divine presence because of miraculous things that are happening. Pelusia could also be used to describe when a person of high rank came to visit a subject, province or state.

43. 20:45

    So for example, it could be used to describe if if the Roman Emperor were to leave the capital city of Rome behind and go to visit Corinth, which was a subject state of the Roman Empire. The word to describe that would be Perusia. So suppose that Paul wanted to say that Jesus was near in spirit but absent in body, but that one day he would be present in body with the whole world would know the transforming power and the healing power of that presence. Then the word he would use to describe that would be Padusia. And suppose that at the same time he wanted to say that Jesus is the true King of the world, and that one day he’s going to appear and rule in person on this earth, which is but the footstool of God.

44. 21:27

    Heaven is His throne, the earth is his footstool. His subject state, if you will, Jesus will come the true King of the world and rule in person with all of the consequences that would result. Then once again, the word that Paul would use to describe that would be parousia. And so he perfectly encapsulates the meaning of the coming of Jesus and the importance of that with one word.

45. 21:50

    And I want you to come with me now to Philippians and chapter 3 and the Apostle Paul so beautifully ties the threads of his argument together throughout many of his writings. And this is just another example of that in Philippians chapter 3. And I’m going to start reading to you from verse 17 and Paul wrote Philippians chapter 3 starting at verse 17. Brothers join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have often told you and tell you now even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their in this destruction their God is their belly and their glory and their shame with mind set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await A Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. And Paul said our citizenship is in heaven because we believe that our King is currently in heaven, that is the capital city of God.

46. 23:05

    If you were to ask a Roman citizen living in Corinth, are you a citizen of Corinth? They’d say no, I’m a citizen of Rome. And if you were to ask a follower of Christ, are you a citizen of Canada or the United States or wherever you happen to live, the answer should be no.

47. 23:24

    I’m a citizen of heaven. That’s where my king lives. And one day he’s going to leave that capital city of God and come to earth to reign. And you see how Paul has has woven this thread into his message to the Philippians now.

48. 23:42

    And in Revelation chapter 21, we won’t turn there, but in the 1st 4 verses we have this beautiful picture with painted and symbolic language of of New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven to earth and a voice says in wonderment. Now God is dwelling with mankind. It’s as if earth and heaven are going to be joined together in that moment and nothing will ever be the same.

49. 24:09

    Now I’m going to turn and I ask you to turn with me to Romans chapter 8, which is probably my favorite chapter in the Bible and I’m going to read to you starting from verse 18. It’s probably my favorite passage in the Bible, and Paul wrote that I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the Son sons of God.

50. 24:42

    For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

51. 25:04

    And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. And Paul says it’s as if all of creation that were creation doesn’t just mean the earth, it means the cosmos, it means the universe, all things that have been created.

52. 25:22

    It’s as if they’ve just been waiting for that moment when heaven will join with earth, when nothing will be the same again, when the corruptible will pass away. And all creation, he says, is eagerly waiting for that moment when the whole universe will be changed. And did you know? Did you notice in verse 22 that he compares it to the pains of childbirth?

53. 25:51

    He says This is what it’s like our existence now compared to what it will be like after that moment in that future era in the Kingdom age, he says. It’s like childbirth and along with many of you in the audience today, I can say I I’ll never know what it’s like to experience childbirth, but I have had a front row seat and he said this is what it’s like.

54. 26:18

    The woman is having her first child and the pain is exquisite. It’s like nothing she’s ever felt. And she thinks it can’t get worse, but it gets worse and it gets worse. And the seconds feel like minutes and the minutes feel like hours. And she thinks it’s never going to end until the moment when the child is born. And she never could have prepared herself for that moment.

55. 26:53

    It’s like nothing she’s ever experienced. And if you were to ask her in that moment, would you go through it all again? All of the pain for all of that time? She’d say in a heartbeat, No question. Every second of it was worth it. And in that day, in that Kingdom, if you were to ask us, would you go through it all again?

56. 27:17

    That feeling of powerlessness, of emptiness, the pain, watching our loved ones die, We’d say in a heartbeat we could not have prepared ourselves for that moment. It will be better than we could have ever imagined.

57. 27:37

    And in verse 28 of First Corinthians chapter 15, which I won’t turn to right now, it says that in that time God will be All in all and it’s as though the entire universe was designed as a receptacle for God’s love. And when the time is right, he will come and fill all of it, all of that emptiness that we see out there in space. We wonder why it’s empty.

58. 28:04

    It was designed with a purpose. It will be filled and it will be transformed. And the Apostle John wrote in first John chapter 3 and the 1st 3 verses. He said, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

59. 28:27

    Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when He appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure. He said. We cannot comprehend what it will be like when we are transformed to be like our Lord, but know that we will be like Him and this is our hope and we will see him as he is.

60. 29:03

    I wouldn’t want that future to be anything like the world that we live in now. And the Bible message is that it will not. We do not even have the language to describe it, but in that moment we will say that it was all worth it, Everything that we might have gone through to get there, as hard as it might have been at the time, it will have been worth it. And in the very last verse of First Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul writes, Therefore my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Anything else we can do in this life will eventually be empty and meaningless, and it will not satisfy us. But God has given us an incredible gift that even now, in this lifetime, we have a job to do that actually means something, work to do, that really, truly matters. If our destiny is here on this earth, and what we do here matters, we’re building for something that will last forever.

61. 30:09

    Every act of love, gratitude and kindness, every work of art or music inspired by the love of God, every act of care, nurture, comfort, and support for our fellow human beings, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the believers, embraces holiness rather than corruption and honors God and imitates Jesus, will find its way into the new creation.

62. 30:33

    And surely that is something worth living for.