What in the world are we doing?
Sometimes I catch the start of the Ray Hadley show on 2GB. He usually begins by summing up the major news of the day. Last Thursday (28 August, 2009) wasn’t a good day. A family tragically killed on the F3 after a large semi-trailer ploughs into the back of the car. A couple receive only a fine in court after seriously neglecting their children. Things aren’t looking too good for Nathan Rees—the knives are out. Another serious car accident. Whose playing in the Rugby League was the bright spot for the day.
The great psychologist, Carl Jung, is quoted as saying, ‘The only thing we have to fear on the planet is man’. And George Bernard Shaw once said, ‘The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist’. Yet the modern person lives with a naïve optimism that, given enough time, everything will be OK. That given enough time and resources, this world will be able to dig itself out of the dreadful hole its found itself in. But this is no more than a self-indulgent dream. Picasso’s question is a good one, ‘The world today doesn’t make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do’?
The picture the Bible paints of the world is both true and disturbing. So disturbing, in fact, that many Christians struggle with the diagnosis. In the beginning, mankind was made to rule creation. The noblest of creatures was set at the head of the created order and told to develop all its powers for the enriching of his own life. And this to be done in obedience to God. We were made to rule the world, to master it and enjoy its fruits and all to the glory of God the Creator. So the psalmist says that man was made ‘a little lower than the heavenly beings and (God) crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet’ (Ps 8:4–6).
But Adam And Eve’s arrogant rebellion disrupted the entire order of things that God had made. Sin disordered their relationship with God. Sin shifted a relationship of communion and peace to one of guilt and shame on man’s side, and rebuke and judgment on God’s side. The first sin also disordered and disrupted Adam and Eve’s own nature. They bore Satan’s image rather than God’s, and in this warped image all their descendants were born. And so humanity is collectively united in its opposition to the rule of God.
In the New Testament, the world is often described as the mass of sinful humanity. In Colossians, Paul describes this world as the ‘dominion of darkness’ (Col 1:13). Our world is solidly given to unrighteousness and ungodliness, and it is hostile to the truth and rejects the people of God. But the world is without excuse. ‘For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles’ (Rom 1:21–23).
There is no-one sitting on the fence. Even the most sincere agnostic rebels against God because what can be clearly seen is treated with indifference. The world is blind, rebellious, and perishing. In the language of John, the flesh is helpless (John 6:63), its works are evil (John 7:7), the world is blind (John 8:12) and a slave to sin (John 8:34), and belongs to the devil (John 8:44). And this is what I want to ask you today, ‘Do you really believe this’?
Satan is described as the ‘prince’ and the ‘god’ of this world. Paul says in 2 Cor 4:4, ‘The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ’. Right now Satan occupies our world and he rules over it. Political correctness is out the window when, in 1 John 5:19, John says, ‘the whole world is under the control of the evil one’. This is the one who keeps this world in a state of spiritual blindness and perversity. And this is what I want to ask you today, ‘Do you really believe this’?
Do you believe that we live in a perishing world? You are perishing if God hasn’t plucked you from this world and given you a saving faith in the Lord Jesus. And a day will come when without warning the entire cosmic order will disintegrate and be reconstructed into a new world. This age is fast coming to a close, then it will pass away, and there will be a new heaven and new earth (Rev 21:1).
The idea that we are spiritually dead until regenerated by God is beyond the understanding of the world. As Christians we know this to be true because, after all, that’s how we became a Christian. It was grace alone that saved a wretch like me. But the inconvenient truth is that many Christians fail to engage the world as though it were perishing. Although we assent to the truths of the Bible, I’m asking whether or not this truth has transformed our thought life. Have we have not ‘set our minds on things above’ (Col 3:2)? If we look into heaven we see a God whose heart is set on mission. ‘God is patient’, Peter says, ‘not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:9).
Gospel ministry is an inconvenient truth which threatens us in two ways. Mission is threatening because it attracts ridicule and persecution. But this should be expected and is a normal part of evangelism. The Gospels make it clear that the pathway to glory is the way of the cross. So have a look with me at Mark 8:34. Here Jesus says, ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it’.
Jesus is explaining to the crowd that there is a cost associated with following him. As the world rejects Jesus, so the world rejects those who follow him. This isn’t an exception situation. Persecution is a natural consequence of following Jesus. For as the authority of the Son of Man was rejected by this world, so are those who live in submission to his authority. Jesus says at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations’ (Matt 28:18–19). As we are faithful to this commission, as we locate ourselves under the authority of Jesus, often we will be persecuted.
Now I want you to notice back in Mark’s Gospel that after the cost of discipleship in Mark 8, what follows is the transfiguration scene. Moses and Elijah were men who suffered because of their faithfulness to God. For a fleeting moment on the high mountain, we glimpse them in full splendour, glorified and with their Lord. Now Mark puts the ‘transfiguration scene’ alongside ‘the cost of following Jesus’ to remind us that all who are prepared to lay aside their life for the gospel can expect a similar destiny to Moses and Elijah - the full splendour of the resurrection life.
Whilst supporting missionaries is necessary and important, this too often replaces the responsibility we have to rub shoulders with culture and risk ridicule and isolation. One Anglican minister who returned to the workplace was surprised of how little evangelism is taking place around the offices in Sydney. We resist direct involvement with mission because of the outward pressure of persecution.
There in another inconvenient truth: we do away with mission on account of inward pressure. The pressure of seduction. We too easily put on the values of our culture. At times, we are so much like the world that we lose our distinctiveness. We are yielding too easily to philosophical mood of our time. Materialism is seductive and we forget the parable of the rich fool in Luke 12. ‘The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops”. Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry”’.
It’s a seductive lifestyle: eating, drinking and being merry. Blending in with culture gives us a sense of security and a sense of home. And it’s a great way to avoid persecution, because if we live like the world then we’ll be accepted by the world and encouraged by the world to put on its secular, humanistic values.
So what in the world are we doing? Nothing of eternal value if we give into the fear of persecution or we become so overwhelmed and seduced by the values of this world. This side of heaven we will always battle with these two pressures which stand to rob us of effective Christian ministry. So we need to challenge and encourage one another to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus and his calling upon our lives.
Do we really believe that people outside Christ are perishing? The Apostle Paul says, ‘For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died or all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again’ (2 Cor 5:14–15).
