On Demand God

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Hey, it's great to have you here. And if this is your first time here or you're here today, welcome. You're here on a perfect day because we are starting a new sermon series called I Want to Believe, But... So let's pray first. Lord God, this day, we are yours. This day is yours. Everything is yours. And we want you to fill this moment and fill this time so that you get your message out through me, even though, you know, whatever I am, Lord, is not really the issue. It's who you are and we want to get to know you better today. And how amazing, how loving, how beyond all our imagination you are, Lord God. And so through this series, I just pray that you'd be with us. We thank you, Lord. This is not the only place that you are present by any means across this globe. And in this community, there are so many who are following you and serving you and trusting in you. So we thank you for so many churches, both as Partners in Love, Inc., as well as, Lord, just churches around sharing your gospel today. Bless those pastors, those messengers, and the people, Lord. And may this whole area undergo a renewal, a reformation, that our hearts and lives are transformed by the gospel. And many, many, many people hear that message, receive that message, and are brought to you. All this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. So I want to believe but, okay? Why this series? Why this series? I think there's more and more people today that want to believe, but there's some obstacle in their way. There's some barrier that gets in the way of believing, and we're going to be looking at that in this series. So let's share this Bible passage first, Isaiah 55, 6 through 9. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. So I want to believe but. A lot of people are struggling with that. Gallup polls since 1944 have been asking the question of Americans whether they believe in God or not. And in 1944, 96% said they personally believed in God. And that remained consistent through about 1967. And then all of a sudden it started to decline from that point on. So that in 2016, we know the last series survey we have that 79% say they believe, 10% are not quite sure or not sure at all, and 11% now say they don't believe in God. And even for the 79% who believe, that is the vast majority of Americans, they struggle with this, how do I believe in God when? And we're going to be going through that series, this series specifically for that. Now when someone might tell you, hey, I don't believe in God, it might shock you because that's not the majority of opinion yet. But it intrigues me many times if somebody comes to me and says, I don't really believe in God. And I want to know why. And sometimes I have on a couple occasions said, hey, tell me about the God you don't believe in, because I probably don't believe in him either. Now I know you might, but that's the reality I think that we're dealing with in this series is the fact that people make a projection of who God is supposed to be and when he doesn't meet that criteria, they then turn on him and say, oh, I just can't believe in God. And I understand why they can't because that God doesn't exist in the first place. It's usually people are not rejecting the God of the scriptures, the God of the gospel, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, they're rejecting the God of their projections. And I don't believe in him either. So we're going to be going through this series. As Phil said, next week, it's exciting, LaFawn will be here. And I'm just excited to see what God is doing in Haiti and how God is working through LaFawn and many others and through our mission and partnership with them. So please bring some guests to that. I think they're going to be excited to see something a little different. You're going to get somebody other than me preaching for a change. That's going to be good. And then in two weeks, we're going to, I'm just going to tell you where we're going. We're going to talk about what I call the Goosebump God, okay? And that is where people say, hey, I want to believe in God, but I just don't feel him. I tried reading the Bible, but I didn't feel anything. I went to church and boy, I didn't feel it. How can you believe in a God that you don't feel, that you can't touch, that you can't hear? That's the Goosebump God. That's in a couple of weeks from now. In three weeks then, we're going to be talking about the Heartless God. That is, I ...