The title for this weekend, "the chasm of alienation" came to me as I was reading a book by the great Christian philosopher Francis Schaefer, who put forward the idea, shaped by his biblical thinking, that in this life Mankind experiences a profound alienation. Mankind experiences a profound alienation, a disconnection, from truth and reality because at the heart of the issue, they experience a profound alienation or disconnection from God.
Each one of mankind, each person, plays a role across the stage of life, all the while pretending that life is a comedy, a drama where the hero wins in the end, but the reality is in fact the very opposite, that life is in itself something of the tragedy. Within ourselves we experience this profound alienation from our world, from each other, and even from our true selves, and it is all because we do not honour the creator God as we should.
All of us know deep within ourselves, the experience of alienation. Whether it be a disconnection from a family member who we really know we should love, but truth be told just can't stand! Whether it is the experience of this disconnection in the world, when things don't work as they should, when the car that has just been rebuilt will not start. The alienation of finishing a university degree after years of hard work, to find an economy in recession which will employ no one new.
It is The alienation of living in a world, in which we're not sure we have a part to play. We don't know where we fit, we want to know that we have a purpose, that we have meaning, we want to know that it all isn't just slipping through our fingers, passing us by.
All of us experience this alienation, sometimes acutely, more often just chronically. But no one misses out, because life gets its hooks into everyone sooner or later, even if we don't want to face up to that reality.
Some of us may even experience the most profound alienation of the lot, the alienation from our very self. A disconnection between the person we have created ourselves to be, and the person God has made us to be. a disconnection that can leave us feeling guilty, and ashamed, anxious or depressed, even sick in our stomach, or untreated hardened and cold to life, each other, but especially God.
All of us know deep within ourselves, the experience of alienation. But the things that get our attention most, are only really symptoms of the biggest problem, which is Mankind's alienation from God himself.
Mankind tries to create for himself a reality with out God in it, and as a result we bear the consequences of these actions. As the apostle Paul himself said, “let God be true and all men are liars". Mankind’s problem is that he attempts to create his own reality, that deep down in its foundational nature and structure is out of step with reality.
In a very real way, mankind has lost his mind! Because mankind has lost touch with the foundation and cornerstone of reality, upon which all reality is structured, the true and living God.
Mankind’s problem, which is to say your big problem, and my big problem, is not global warming, it is not the world economic crisis, it is not even the diagnosis of cancer that will come to many of us who are in this room today. These things are just symptoms of alienation, symptoms of the real problem of being disconnected from the truth, disconnected from reality, which is to say to being disconnected from God, and from his son Jesus Christ.
In thinking about this theme of alienation, we cannot go past the biblical teaching of the apostle Paul in the book of Romans. Over the weekend, we again have a look at a couple of sections from Romans. A quite wonderful and yet at times bewildering book, that holds for us the keys of reality, truth, and the antidote for alienation.
Overview and introduction
In a moment we're going to have a look at the nature of mankind’s reality, and in particular, we are going to look at Paul's words from Romans chapter 3 V10, that “no one is righteous, not even one”. In this amazing passage of scripture, we see Paul clearly outline the darkness of the human heart, and the bleakness that results from his endeavours.
Once we have outlined this problem, the bulk of the weekend is going to be spent looking at the great shaft of light that Paul proposes is the solution to this alienation. the great theme of this weekend, is picking up on the great theme of the book of Romans, that the solution to this world’s alienation is to fix its problem with God.
The unsurprising part of this solution is that it is about Jesus Christ.
The surprising part of the solution is that it is about you as well!!
Paul outlines for the Christian believers in Rome, that the solution, the antidote for the world's problem of alienation from; God, their world, each other, even themselves; is the Gospel of Christ. The Gospel message of Jesus Christ who is Lord, who died for sin, and was raised from the dead, the Gospel message which brings about from Christian people, "the obedience of faith".
Christian people living Christian lives are an integral part of God's solution for his world. That is the surprising and challenging part of the Gospel message, which is to say the message of Romans. God's desire is to use you to bring about renewal and change in his world, in his creation. In and through you, Christ is bringing in his kingdom into his creation, to make a new creation.
The antidote for the world and its alienation, is the authentic Christian life brought about by the Gospel message of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And as a result Paul compels from his hearers, truth, reality and goodness, he implores them, he exhorts them, he appeals to them, to live the authentic Christian lives, to live the life of worship, to be living sacrifices wholly devoted to God, he appeals to them to live the life that is called "the obedience of faith".
So in a moment we will have part one of our sessions, where we will look at mankind's problem. Following on from that in part two after morning tea, we will look at how the cross of Christ is the real and foundational, central truth of life, the universe, and everything!
And tomorrow morning we will in part three we will look at the “obedience of faith”, that the cross compels from us, the life of worship. The life of worship is the service and honour of the living God which will mean Christian people living against the world, for the world’s sake.
In addition we will be looking at Chapter 8 of Romans in study groups, and tonight we will have a chance for a group question time.
It is chock-a-block this weekend, so hold on to your hats.
Now to get us in the mood, to think about mankind's plight, I thought we could listen to some U2, almost by accident U2 have become something of a soundtrack to my life, a function of my age no doubt, but I think Bono hits the nail on the head, when he says there are only two types songs in this world, those running towards God, and those running away from God. I hope by the end of this weekend you leave resolved as to which type of song will be the soundtrack of your life.
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