What we want to talk about today is faith in the age of the coronavirus. Keep believing and keep fighting. Right now, if you’re like me and like a lot of us, we’re really nervous. We’re really afraid. Very afraid that we might touch something, we might breathe something. And the next thing you know, we’re sick. We get a sneeze. I know I had some allergies this morning, and I was like, uh oh, do I have it? And we all get nervous and we get afraid. And I know I’m afraid, I’m nervous. But as we adapt, we want to have faith. In this age of the coronavirus, faith in the age of the coronavirus. Psalm ninety one, verse nine and ten. When we live our lives within the shadow of God Most High, our secret hiding place, we will always be shielded from harm. How then could evil prevail against us or disease infect us? Our confidence must be not only in the work of our health, medical and science professionals, but our confidence has to be in God. And God can shadow our homes. He can shadow our lives. He can watch out so that just because we touch something and forget to wash our hands, we can count on God to protect us. Faith or fear is the real choice. That’s what it is. Are we going to have faith or are we going to be afraid? In Psalm seventy five, in verse three, when the earth and everyone living upon it spin in the chaos, I am the one who stabilizes and supports it. You know, this passage is great. And you’ll see there a picture of Dave Voelker, Doctor Dave Voelker. He’s next to his wife, Lisa. Lisa’s the one who shared this scripture on Facebook. And it’s really a powerful scripture because it tells us that even when nations and even when government are having an extraordinary amount of difficulty managing crisis, God is there to stabilize us. We want to put our faith in God, not put our energy into being afraid. If you’re like me or my friends, we can come up with ways to be afraid. We can create ways to be afraid. Fear makes us frantic. What King Saul in the Bible. The reason his whole life fell apart is he was so frantic. When Saul saw the Philistine army, he became frantic with fear. The world is in chaos. And when we’re frantic with fear, there’s a market for that. We have to keep our faith so we don’t lose control and allow our lives to unravel. You know, some of you may be science fiction fans. I’m a science fiction fan, and there is. And I actually scared some kids years ago when I was in college because I told their parents to take them to the movie Dune. And that was a big mistake. The dad called me up and said, what did you recommend that movie for? My kids were crying. I thought it was great, but you know, I was like twenty. But the book is a great book and I want to give you a quote from it. It’s by Frank Herbert. I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it is gone past. I will turn the inner eye. To see its path. Where the fear has gone. There will be nothing. Only I remain fear. Fear is the little thing that can obliterate us. It can destroy our faith. It can destroy our relationships. It can make us isolate in unhealthy ways, and it can unravel us emotionally. We do not want to allow fear to reign. So if you want to be like Jesus. I know I do. I’m sure you do. We can’t let fear reign. Acts two in verse twenty five. This is David talking about Jesus. David spoke of Jesus’s resurrection, saying, I see the Lord is ever present with me. I will not live in fear or abandon my calling because he guides my right hand. Jesus had such great faith and confidence in God that he would not give up his calling to go to the cross. He would not give up his calling to sacrifice his life. His example for us is that even when things are at their worst, we need to have faith so we can be at our best. We cannot let fear keep us from fulfilling our calling as Christians, which is to love, to serve, to give and to believe and to change the world. Jesus confidence. I think of a lion Jesus type confidence. Acts four thirteen now the leaders were surprised and confused. They looked at Peter and John and realized they were typical peasants, uneducated, utterly ordinary fellows. With extraordinary confidence, the leaders recognized them as companions of Jesus. People who spend time with Jesus have extraordinary confidence. Yeah, even in difficult times. That’s a challenge for me. Maybe that’s a challenge for you. Confidence. Even when everything we hear on the news, even with everything we read in our online paper, says we should have cynicism or pessimism or fatalism, fatalism being that sense that there’s nothing I can do. This is just what’s going to happen in my life. We have to have Jesus type confidence with extraordinary confidence and a bold confidence. Jesus confidence is spiritual tenacity. That willingness to keep fighting even when your body and your heart tell you, nah, man, I should give up. Mark five thirty five. While Jesus was still speaking. Some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. Your daughter is dead. Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, don’t be afraid. Just believe. You can face the facts. You and I can. We can face the facts, but then we can say to ourselves, okay, I know the facts, but my faith gives me the ability to say I can be the exception to the statistic. In first Peter three six. Like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her Lord. Now I underline, Lord, because I know some of the ladies are going, wait a minute, what’s this Lord business? Well, you’ll understand it in a minute. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. Why do women have to be positioned where their strong and courageous? Not to give way to fear because they have a husband and that husband is going to get into trouble? Abraham got into a mess of trouble. He lied about junk, got Sarah picked up by another guy, and Sarah had to work it all out, and God had to work it all out. And he ruined it. And Sarah. Sarah had to be okay. I cannot fear the fact that I’m married to this guy. What can we learn there? We can learn. Don’t give way to fear when it’s not a woman’s scripture. This is our scripture. Don’t give way to fear. Have spiritual tenacity. Fight through things. The coronavirus. It’s a little thought for you. The coronavirus will reveal spiritual inflexibility like yoga reveals muscle inflexibility. Think about that. I do yoga. I’ve pulled muscles. In fact, do you like the Big Bang theory? Do you like that? Take a look at this yoga exercise right here. Take a look. That’s me. Maybe that’s you. Inflexible. Inflexible. You know what I’m saying? We’ve got to just relax. Lean into God and be flexible.
We’re going to talk about something really interesting next. God and science. All right. God and science. How God makes miracles happen. Romans four nineteen. We need faith to handle the facts. In spite of being nearly one hundred years old when the promise of having a son was made. His faith was so strong that it could not be undermined by the fact that he and Sarah were incapable of conceiving a child. See, there’s why Sarah kind of liked Abraham. Because under duress, he kept his faith. He never stopped believing God’s promise, for he was made strong in his faith to father a child. And because he was mighty in faith and convinced that God had all the power needed to fulfill his promises. Abraham glorified God and I gave you some pictures. If you’re looking at those pictures, there are some of my favorite scientist. I wanted to be a scientist when I was a kid. Chemistry labs. Biology lab in my room. My bedroom. And so I believe in facts. I believe in observation and the facts of science. But I think it’s not easy to handle if you don’t have faith. Facts without faith are problematic. Asa had this in second Chronicles sixteen twelve. In the thirty ninth year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease, he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians. This isn’t saying you shouldn’t seek help from physicians. It’s saying when you don’t have faith, you’re putting yourself in a position where the facts can overwhelm you or even conquer you. This is a quote from Louis Pasteur, one of my favorites. You’ve heard of pasteurization. He was, as you can see, a founder of microbiology and immunology. Here’s a quote from him. A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to him. Let’s keep reading. Albert Einstein said this. The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance. I’m glad that today has been declared a national Day of Prayer. And regardless of your political position, that’s a good thing. When we say we’re going to have a national day of prayer that demonstrates to God humility. Now remember, for the history buffs during the Revolutionary War and after the Revolutionary War, throughout our early history, they often declared not only days of prayer, but fasting too. In First Corinthians one twenty one, for in his wisdom God designed that all the world’s wisdom would be insufficient to lead people to the discovery of himself. He took great delight in baffling the wisdom of the world by using the simplicity of preaching the story of the cross in order to save those who believe it. Understand? I know, I realize he’s talking about discovering himself, but the key thing for us to understand today is our scientists and medical professionals can do incredible work, but human limits prevent people from having the ability to unravel the mysteries of this world. God is the one who does that. Here’s another quote from Henry Frederick Emil. Society lives by faith and develops by science. We need to have the kind of faith to believe that if we pray, we can actually help scientists find cures to the coronavirus and other things. If we pray, we can actually influence and impact manufacturing so more ventilators are created. That’s what we should be praying for. We should be praying for Italy. We should be praying for Iran. We should be praying for China and all the other countries impacted, as well as our own country and city, and praying that the miracle of invention will bring answers to to the challenges we face. So faith. So God in science, I love this Proverbs twenty five and verse two in the message translation. God delights in concealing things. Scientists delight in discovering things. There’s a partnership there, and we need to pray that that partnership takes place. I believe all my heart that God is constantly enjoying our sense of adventure and discovery, and that he wants to reveal the answer to this natural disaster called the coronavirus, and that all of our scientists that are working on it are going to get the guidance they need if we pray. Max Planck says this another great scientist. Anybody who has been seriously engaged in scientific work of any kind, realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the Temple of Science are written the words, you must have faith.
Panic or prayer. Panic or prayer. Gotta fight the instinct to panic. And instead we need to pray. Because that’s how we make miracles happen. God can make miracles happen by working and revealing mysteries to scientists. We make miracles happen by praying. Let’s take a quick look at our favorite philosopher, Yoda. Yoda. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. You know, there are a lot of people who say that if we’re not careful, the cure we’re implementing can be worse than the disease. What I mean by that is when we isolate and distance ourselves socially, the danger is we can cut ourselves off emotionally and we can stop caring about people. And that’s how you end up having disasters. That’s one of the reasons that the Italy video has gone viral, where the Italians are coming out on their porches and they’re singing to each other, because the Italians understand that in the midst of crises, you cannot cut each other off emotionally. You have to reach out and keep that connection. That’s how you keep fear from leading to anger and hate. And maybe, you know, you’re looking at TV and you’re getting angry at the president, angry at the task force, angry at the head of public health in your area. You know, that’s not going to be helpful. Hating somebody who doesn’t even know you exist doesn’t have a lot of impact anyway. And sometimes it’s what my mom always tells me. Just turn off the TV. That’s the better way to handle that. Just turn off the TV. So let’s read the scripture in Proverbs three twenty five. Do not be afraid of sudden panic or of the storm that strikes the wicked. How about that? Let’s you and me, all of us, encourage each other. Let’s send text and say, don’t panic. Let’s send emails and say, don’t panic or posting on Facebook. Let’s do what a lot of people are already doing. Let’s post things that help us not to panic, not to let fear get a grip and make us angry and bitter and resentful and fatalistic and negative. It’s too easy to do. And by the way, I’m not a doctor. I’m not a scientist. I read books and they say that stress and strain and fear are bad for your immune system. So the worst thing we can be doing, getting all angry, that’s killing your immune system, making you more vulnerable to sickness. No no no no no. Be like the kid in the Angel in the outfield. My favorite kid in angel outfield. He. I got Chris back there. He’s running around doing the little angel in the outfield thing. So we’re supposed to. So at home, everybody just together and stop. You’re distracting me. Hey. It could happen. How about we start saying that to each other when someone says, oh, no, it’s spreading. We say about a vaccine. They said eighteen months. Two years. Hey, why can’t it happen in two months? Why not? One of the labs created one in forty two days. It’s got to go through the FDA approval, but in forty two days. I mean, there’s so many incredible things. Hey, it can happen in Deuteronomy thirty one six. So be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid and do not panic. Do not be afraid and do not panic before them, for the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you or abandon you. You know, we’re at one of those key moments in life. Seriously? Well, you’re going to decide whether you’re going to believe in God or not. And a lot of us, we go to church, but we don’t always have our own faith. I remember being at Boston University in the library. They had a library there where you could listen to music and classical music. And and I found a set of Martin Luther King speeches. So I’d go there to study and I would listen to his his speeches and his talks. And he told the story of how when he was in the civil rights movement, he was at home one night. His family was sleeping. He was nervous because he had his life threatened. And a lot of tough things were happening. And he got a phone call. and a phone call. The person on the other end used the N word first and then said, you better get out of our town or we will kill you. Martin Luther King then said, I hung up the phone and I realized for the first time in my life, my dad couldn’t help me. My mom couldn’t help me. Having another cup of coffee wasn’t going to help me. I had to know God for myself. You’ve come to a moment, and I’ve come to a moment where you’re going to have to know God for yourself, and maybe you’re going to choose to know him or not. But if you pray, you’ll know him like you’ve never known him before. And I think all of us will be victorious. When I’m talking about knowing God for yourself and being at this stress test moment. It reminds me of Howard Kuhns brother Ron Kuhn. I called Howard one day and his brother, who unfortunately died of cancer some years ago, was at Fresno State and a leading professor in the area of counseling and emotional health. And I said, Howard, will you get me an appointment with your brother? I want to I want to learn from him. I’m in a church, but I want to learn how to think about psychology for people that have faith. And we spent a good amount of time together at Friday’s restaurant, TGI Friday’s, I think it’s called I can’t Eat There Anymore. I’m not young anymore. I can’t burn off the fat, so I have to eat vegan bars. Just thinking about it makes me sad. But at one point, Ron was telling me a bunch of stuff, incredible amounts of stuff. He and Howard were listening. Ron, he said this to me because I wrote it down. When it comes to emotional health, what I want people to understand is the goal is not to be without difficulty, but to be clear, to have no unfinished business. So I think when it comes down to knowing God right now, because we can’t get to church, some of us are going to have our unfinished business cup on us. The guilt, the anger. Doing things we know we shouldn’t be doing that aren’t helpful to our marriage, our family, or anyone. But it’s a great time to get clear. Pray instead of panic. In second Chronicles twenty and verse nine, if calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment or plague or famine, this is Jehoshaphat, King Jehoshaphat, talking, we will stand in your presence before the temple that bears your name and will cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us. Stress handled poorly, makes us crash, crumble and get sick. Stress handled properly causes us to pray. God hears and God saves us. This all makes me think today about the great speech that Winston Churchill gave at Harrow School in nineteen forty one. A lot of people were afraid because we were on the precipice of the destruction being reaped out by the Nazi German forces, and Winston Churchill had a determination in the face of overwhelming odds that unveiled itself in that speech. And this quote never give in. never, never, never, never in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. If there has ever been a time in our lives where we should choose to never yield and never give up that time, well, that time would be now. We cannot let ourselves give up. We’re going to get through this together. We’re going to stick together. We’re going to pray for each other. We’re going to be well. We’re going to stay well.
