Is God Real? - Week 3

Big idea

I am so glad to see you all here at Remix. It’s going to be a great day. We are right in the middle of a series called Is God Real? In this series, we are looking at and answering this important question.

Now one thing I know about this question is that when you believe that God is real, you are going to encounter people who believe something different. This is especially true if you go to public school. How many public school students are here right now? Yeah that is most of you. If you have science class you are probably at some point going to have a teacher that talks about EVOLUTION.

Now for the most part, they don’t present it as a theory, but it is shared as fact. You might even have to take tests about it. When I was in middle school I had to take life science with Mrs. Rassmassen. She was about 80 years old and looked like she put her makeup on with a putty knife, it was pretty bad. I remember learning about evolution because there were these big charts on the wall of the classroom with monkeys progressing into men. You have seen these before right?

I remember learning that the earth was billions of years old and that somehow there was this cosmic soup that got hit by a lightning bolt and then out popped an ameba. Later that ameba grew a tale and legs then we got serious and jumped out on the land and became humans. I might have passed a few phases, but you catch my drift. Now, I was always the kid in class who asked a lot of questions like, “Where did the soup come from? Why did we decide to get legs and not just be like snakes? And where else does anything like this ever happen in nature?” Teachers tend to not like these questions. They can get very defensive and angry, but it is always your place as a student to ask good questions. Don’t be mean, don’t be arrogant, just have honest questions.

Evolution is a theory that Charles Darwin came up with. It is now used to try to prove that there is no God and our world randomly came into existence out of nothing. We have learned something different through the last few weeks. We know there are 4 reasons that point to God’s existence that we have studied so far:

1. Every effect has a cause.
2. Every created thing has a Creator.
3. Every design has a Designer.
4. Without a Maker, there is no lasting meaning for life.

All four of these truths point us to the existence of God, who is the Creator and Designer of the world and who gives each one of us purpose every day. We have seen that something cannot come from nothing and that the search for meaning and purpose all people have points to God and His plan for each one of us. Today, we are going to talk about evolution and ask ourselves if evolutionists have made a convincing case for evolution, or if creation, what Scripture teaches about how this world and everything in it came into existence, is a better reasoning for the creation of the world.

Now, as we start talking about evolution versus creation, it will be helpful to have a good definition for the two words.

Evolution: No one + Nothing = Everything.

Now, this theory has an issue right off the bat. We know that it is impossible for something to appear out of nothing. For example, try as I might right now, I cannot just make sour patch kids come into existence.

Creation: God, who has always existed outside of space and time, created the heavens and the earth.

This belief of creation means that God made everything simply by speaking words. It’s amazing! Rather than something just appearing, creationism teaches that every single thing was purposefully and uniquely designed and created by God.

There are two different types of evolution that are important for us to talk about:

Microevolution: Small evolutionary changes occur within species.

This is how we get different dog breeds. Do you have a favorite dog breed? Mine is the Golden doodle. Well, if you breed different types of dogs, for example, the Poodle and the Golden Retriever: you get the Golden Doodle.

The Bible tells us that plants and animals reproduce after their kind, which is what microevolution is. We see evidence of this every day.

Macroevolution: Primitive animals over billions of years have been transformed over time into more complex creatures. For example, over millions of years an ape could evolve into a human being.

Macroevolution is the teaching that originated from Charles Darwin which teaches that all of life originated from a cloud of primordial soup.

Here are some problems with Macroevolution:

No viable mechanism to generate the Primordial Soup.

It is not backed up by a fossil record. We can’t find these changes over time without discovering that they were a new species.

DNA in every cell is too incredibly complex to develop on it’s own.

Random Mutations, despite what you read in comic books, don’t turn out very well. We know this usually as cancer, deformities or other very sad situations leading to a shorter life rather than a longer one.

Genes and the genetic code. Years of study have been done to find one gene that could adapt into all of the genetic code, this cannot be found in nature.

Ultimately many who hold to the THEORY of evolution want so badly to believe in anything but God. Their bias towards God makes them jump through whatever hoop they have to in order to live life according to their own standards.

The question today is, What takes more faith to believe? That God created life on this earth or that 6 million species of living things evolved out of nothing? Let’s put our faith in a God who created all of life on this earth and is in control of everything.

Let’s keep talking about this in our groups now and learn more about how Scripture points to God as the creator of the whole world.

Break the ice

Have you ever had an awkward moment in school where the concept of evolution came up? How did you respond?

Small group questions

1. Why do you think evolution is often shared as truth instead of a theory?
2. Read Genesis 1:1-5. What do we learn about God and how the world was created in these verses?googl
3. How would you explain to a friend who asked you what the Bible teaches about how the world and everything in it came to exist?
4. When a teacher or someone in your life talks about evolution as if it is fact, how can you respond? What are some genuine questions you can ask to challenge evolution in a respectful way.
5. Read Genesis 1:31. What do we learn about the world God created in this verse?
6. What difference does it make that the world was created by God?
7. Which takes more faith to believe, that God created life on this earth, or that 6 million species of living things evolved out of nothing? Why?

Moving forward

Okay it is practice time for you and your group. Let’s imagine you are in a classroom and the teacher starts sharing about evolution, what are some right and wrong ways to deal with the situation. Take out a sheet of paper and work together as a group to identify some right ways and wrong ways to respond. When you are done snap a quick photo of your sheet and tag @remixstudents and the hashtag #isgodreal? so we can see how everyone responds to this challenge. The best Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream for their group next week (Hopefully Chunky Monkey!).

It might be good when you are done with this exercise to have your group leader play the part of the science teacher and then you as a group share with them your reasons for God being real and creating everything over the theory of evolution.