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A Book Read - The Accidental Anglican
12 years ago
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Choices Part I - Discerning our way through the world
Introduction to this series
The aim of this particular preaching series, or series of talks really, is to help us think Christianly, about the world that God has given us to live in. Normally we have talks directly from a set passage from the Bible, and this is entirely right, in terms of our confidence that God really does speak to us truly about our world, from his word.
However often, due to the constraints of time, we don't spend much time thinking about the nitty-gritty of life in the world.
So over the next few weeks we are going to spend some time working hard at thinking about how God call us to engage with him and live in his world in ways that are consistent with his call, in order that we may both glorify God and serve our fellow man.
Over the next two weeks in particular we are going to think about a framework for making choices in God's world, a set of glasses if you like for viewing the world, and in a couple of weeks time we will finish the series by thinking about the nitty-gritty of how to make decisions in light of these truths.
Choices Part I: Discerning our way through the world!
We live in an age of choices, because we live in an age of endless options. You could even say (fairly I think), that we live in an age of unparalleled options throughout history. From trying to find a new mobile phone plan or Internet plan, through to which kind of milk you are going to buy as you look at the 14 different types. You start to realize we are constantly bombarded with choices, because we are bombarded with options.
How do we choose which one is right?
How do we choose which one is right for us?
And is this choice only right for us in-particular?
Or are some options right for everyone irrespective of their situation?
Now It seems to me, that the two main pieces of logic that still hold the greatest way in our society today when it comes to choices are;
‘Firstly, keep your options open for as long as you can,
and Secondly, to quote the great 20th Century philosopher Mick Jagger, "I'm free to do what I want any old time".
So the first approach of keeping your options open may sound like great wisdom, and there is truth in it at times. But in reality usually having lots more options, just makes making any given decision all the more daunting.
The hard choice is when you have 1000 things to pick from,
the easiest choice to make is when you have, well, one thing to pick from. Then the decision is easy, it makes itself.
Keeping your options unendingly open, may sound like wisdom, but in the end it can be stifling, because any decision to be a good decision, needs to be made within the allotted time, within the window of opportunity that it exists in. A good decision made too late, is just another bad decision.
Keeping your options open, it seems to me most of the time, is just an excuse to not have to make a decision on all, an excuse to not have to commit to something you have chosen. Now it could be because of laziness or it could be because fear, but mostly it comes because of an uncompromising self-interest, expressed as a desire to not have to take responsibility for (and bear the consequences of) our own decisions.
One of my mates growing up was a classic for this approach because, well he was just out and out lazy. In fact every Saturday night were used to meet at his place to try to work out something to do for that Saturday night (before mobiles obviously). And basically we met at his house because, well he was too lazy to go to someone else's. And we would come up with all sorts of suggestions about what we should do with the night, and his response every time was, "let's just wait and see what happens.". And our response was, “what will happen, is exactly what happened last week, which is what happened the week before, which is nothing!”. Trying to keep your options open inevitably, is actually an act of self-interested laziness, and it misunderstands the nature of our world, with the reality that good decisions need to be made in good time, because there is always a window of opportunity for them to be made within.
To Just constantly leave our options open, and let things drift along, to the point that we have no decision left to make, because time runs out and circumstances act upon us, is not only self-centered laziness, it is in fact an abrogation of our God-given responsibility as discerning, thinking and acting people made in the image of God.
Secondly, the wisdom of our age says "I am free to do what I want any old time". This thought has also profoundly misunderstood the nature of the reality we exist within.
All freedom we have in this world is bounded, and it is primarily bounded for our good. God created this world with order and purpose. Much of the order that God has placed in the world is discernible by us through observation and wisdom. For instance I am free to go for a walk around the block, but I am not free to jump off a 10 Storey building!
This isn't a bad thing it's just an acknowledgement of reality. I am a bounded person and this is okay as part of God’s created order, part of the order of creation that wisdom can discern as a means of living successfully through this world.
And while much of the order of creation may be observable to us, there is also much that needs to be revealed to us. In fact we know the most important reality of our world needs to be revealed to us, that there is a God who has made this world, and he made it with an order and a purpose.
God's purpose for creation isn't observable to us with the naked eye (if I can use those terms), God's purpose for reality needs to be revealed to us, and he does that in his word the Bible.
The wise person, the godly person, realises that God created our world, with bounds, order and purpose. The wise person takes the time to discern how to put themselves in right relationships with this reality and act accordingly. The wise person discerns how to live in right relations with God and his world, and then chooses to act consistently with that.
Choices: are about discerning our way through the world we live in.
Now it is worth saying that choices aren't always easy are they?
Some choices aren’t that bad, in fact they are relatively trivial, like the challenge of buying the right type of milk, but others are quite devastatingly difficult, like whether to keep the life-support machine on, or to switch it off?
But making choices is part of our responsibility of being people made in the image of God in his created order.
So at the moment (and over the next few weeks) we are thinking about how can I better understand God and his purposes through his word and his world, in order that I may make timely good choices and live consistently with his purposes.
So that really we need to ask the question,
Why is it that choices can be so hard to make?
Well there are a number of reasons that decisions can be very hard to make, but roughly they break down into three major categories.
Firstly, the problem with us.
Secondly, the problem with the world.
And thirdly, the problem of God.
So firstly the problems with us.
A. In our very nature, mankind, human beings, are bounded people. We can only exist in a certain space and a certain time, within which we are able to act, we can't be everywhere and we can't do everything at once. So we are bounded by our own finite existence. This means we have to choose where we are going to be, and what we're going to do based on a priority of importance. We can't do everything.
B. Also as mankind, human beings, we are bounded people, because we have finite knowledge. We do not know everything, we can't know everything, we can't even know everything that is within our own sphere of influence, much less everything that will be.
For instance we can know we are able to perform a certain action, but we can't know in advance, the full consequences that the action will have, we can only estimate based on the finite knowledge we have.
So, We have finite knowledge, we can know some things truly, but never exhaustively.
C. Also time not only impacts upon our ability to be in one place at one time, it also limits the opportunity that is available for us to act.
Choices in this world need to be made within certain time limits, or otherwise they turn out to be no decision at all. A decision to wait longer before leaving a house, (to see if it is really necessary), in the face of the overwhelming warnings of an impending natural disaster, has the capacity to turn a natural disaster, into a human tragedy. Choices have to happen within real-time limitations. There is a window of opportunity for any given decision because we are bounded people with finite time to make choices.
And we haven't even got to the hard part to yet, because the Bible tells us that that not only are we bounded in our space and time and our knowledge, but worse than that, we are people who are profoundly marred by the impact of sin in this world.
Back in the beginning, back at the beginning of the Bible in a book called Genesis, we read the story of how God created the world. He Created this world from his own goodness and generosity and he created this world good, in fact the Bible says very good. And the peak of God's creation was Mankind himself. Mankind was made in the image of God.
Now what that means in its fulness is often the subject of debate (and it is a big subject), But of all the other things that it may mean, it certainly means this. Mankind was made to rule as God’s agent over his world. Not rule like some sort of tyrant by abusing it and using it for his own ends, but ruling as God's agent as God would, to lovingly, wisely and caringly preserve it and cause it to flourish.
The opening scenes of the Bible begin with mankind in the Garden of Eden with God himself. God and man are in direct relationship, and God gives mankind responsibility in the garden. Now if the Bible says anything, it certainly says that God is sovereign over all things, God knows all things, it wasn't as though God was waiting for mankind to discover things in order for him to understand them.
But the Bible points out that even in his sovereignty God generosity gave mankind a real creative agency to be God’s agent in the world and to help it multiply and be fruitful.
In fact mankind being in the image of God, has a responsibility and authority to determine things in God's world. As you may remember God brought the animals before man to allow man to name them, and whatever he chose as their name, that was their name.
Now I’m pretty confident God knew that a zebra was a zebra, but it shows mankind was given real agency to make real determinations in God's world. And that is one aspect of what it truly means to be made in the image of God. A responsibility to make determinations in line with God’s goodness and purpose in God's world. Mankind has a purpose, because God made mankind to live towards a certain goal, in line with God’s purpose. And that goal was the good of all creation.
But not only was Mankind given responsibility to determine. He was also given bounds. Now they may have only been small bounds, (which I think reflects the fact of how close God was in relationship with mankind, in a state of personal connection), but mankind was given real bounds, the bounds of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Mankind broke that bound and ate from the tree, and because of that God was faithful in his promise and punished mankind for his sin.
The consequences of mankind’s Sin were significant not only for original man, but for all mankind, all human beings, who came afterwards, and in fact for the whole of creation. God removed mankind from the garden, and Mankind now had a mediated relationship with God, not a direct relationship like it had been in the garden. And because of that sin, God cursed the ground & mankind now lived a world that was a place of brokenness and disorder.
All of God's creation has been touched by the curse of sin. Because of mankind's rebellion against God, because of mankind’s unwillingness to do the right thing, by stepping outside the bounds got had set for him.
The original Sin, of the original pair of humans, was to disbelieve the truth about God's word for his world, his word of bounds that is both truthful and gracious. The first people doubted, and fell to the temptation of the devil, which is still alive and well today, the temptation "did God really say?". The implication being does God really know what he is talking about in his world, or is he just a spoil sport, a nark, a wowser, putting bounds so that you can't have fun like you should.
Well the subsequent disaster of that decision to ignore God’s good bounds cannot be stated in too emphatic terms. God was right when he said, “don't go beyond the bounds, because it's bad you, and consequences will follow.” God spoke truthfully in his word, and God still speaks truly in his word to us today. Mankind has always had bounds, because God has spoken truly to us about how we should live the good life he intended inside his bounds in his world by his word.
Mankind bears in his existence the marks of his decision. Sin touches all areas of life, but it is important to note, it does not make all material things evil, like the Greek philosophers said, instead, however, all material things have been impacted by Sin. Nothing works perfectly like it should. Nothing is inclined in itself to please God and his purposes like it should.
But despite the impact of sin all things can still be used by God for his good purposes should he desire it.
But this truth 0f Sin impacts us in making choices. Sin impacts the ability of our rational mind to understand, it impacts the ability of our emotions to properly discern truth, and sin especially impacts the ability of our will, to do the right thing that we know we ought to. Sin impacts on our entire person and our ability to discern what is right good and true, and then to carry it out in this world. The inclinations of our rational mind, our emotional mind, and our will, are away from God in themselves, and they need to be renewed.
Is it any wonder that “we find” making choices is so hard in this world!
Not only are we finite beings bounded in our knowledge, bounded in time and space, but even the things we have discerned, those finite amounts of knowledge are profoundly impacted and marred by Sin that distorts the reality itself and our perception of it.
So Firstly, you see there are quite a lot of problems “with us” when it comes to making decisions.
But Secondly, there are also problems with the reality that we encounter when we try and make decisions. The creation that was made so ordered and good has also been marred by Sin, and so it no longer works exactly like it should, and we are unable to discern it exactly like we should be in order to live in the right way in this world.
On top of that we were made finite to start with so there is no possible way we can conceive or perceive or understand the entirety of the reality that we find ourselves living within.
We cannot possibly know everything that is happening, (and in particular), we certainly can't possibly know the consequences of all our actions. It just isn't possible, and that was before the impact of sin on the world and us. There is a brokenness to us and to our world that we cannot fix ourselves, and this is a real problem for us trying to find our way through this world.
There is the Theatre of life which is this created order amongst which we must move in this life, and it is one fraught with fear and trepidation for us as we make decisions because we are unable to perceive it properly, or to fully understand the consequences of our decisions, prior to us making them.
So let’s get this straight, Firstly, we are broken. Secondly, the world is broken, but believe it or not it actually gets worse than that!
Because Thirdly, there is the problem of God. After the fall in the garden when God removed mankind from the garden, fellowship with God was broken, and we know that God became our judge. Like Cane, we are left to wander in the wilderness, in a deep-seated fear of judgement, in the true knowledge of real reality, that we are sinful person in the eyes of a holy God, and that truth runs deep into the core of our being.
The Psalmist once asked “what is man that you are mindful of him”, and the thinking moral man knows all too well what it is to be the subject of God's holy gaze. To know that none of the wrong we do is beyond his purview, that each decision we make is another opportunity to rack up more charges to our rap sheet for when we appear before the judgment thrown of the one true living in holy God.
Is it any wonder we find choices hard in this world?
We as thinking agents are finite, and worse than that we are smudged by Sin.
The objects of our observation, the world itself has a brokenness in the fabric of its being, that makes it impossible to discern the right thing to do every time.
And to top that we live life under the gaze of a holy and just God who will hold every wrong choice to account.
Is it any wonder we find decisions hard?
The secularists, the person who believes that this life is all that there is, will ask the question, "how do I find my way in this world?".
This question is to ask the question of the order of life. It's an attempt to discern the order of the reality we inhabit now and to work out how to move in it wisely.
But this question of the secularist is the wrong question. Because it starts with the wrong premise. It fails to observe that not only do you need to know the order of reality and right relationships in this world, more than that, you need to know their purpose. The reality we are in, has an order to it (amongst which we must move) but it also has a purpose. Creation itself is moving towards a goal. Which means we as people within this creation \ are also moving towards this goal.
So in terms of our choices: Discerning our way through the world. The over-arching principle to realise is, that everything has a purpose, a goal. The whole of creation has a purpose, a purpose where God is bringing order from the chaos that was brought about by Sin.
We read again today the chapters of revelation 4 & 5, reminding us of the goodness of God and his purpose in his world. These wonderful scenes remind us of who God is and what he has done, and indeed what he is doing in our world.
There can be no doubt that the Bible always starts with the picture of God being utterly sovereign. He is sovereign in all his actions and purposes and goals. He is sovereign in his act of creation, as he brings the world into being without opposition, according to his good purpose, according to his set order. But not only is God utterly sovereign, he is also good. He creates the world good, and when mankind rebels against him and brings Sin into this world, he does not wipe the slate clean and start again, but instead he shows his goodness by bringing his son into the world to save lost mankind.
God’s purposes in creation and salvation overlap, as he brings them all to the final close spoken of in the scene of Revelation 4 & 5 and culminating in the scene in Revelation 21 and 22, where all things have been Reconciled to God, because of, and through the lamb who was slain.
At the centre of all reality purpose and meaning in this world is Jesus Christ and his cross and his resurrection. This end scene tells us that, in no uncertain terms. In his death on the cross in our place, Jesus brought us peace with God, the God who had cast us out of the garden has now welcomed us back into fellowship. The debt of our sin has been paid, and we can be forgiven and have a new relationship with God.
But not only that, the son of God Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, not only died but he was raised to life to inaugurate his new kingdom. Jesus who was the agent of creation in the first place, through his resurrection has inaugurated a new creation. The new Kingdom of God that Jesus brings in, of which he is the king, is a time of new creation. Jesus not only paid the penalty of our sin, but he also acted in order to correct the effects of our Sin. In Christ the new creation has begun.
And because of Christ, those of us who have accepted his offer of forgiveness, the new creation (the new Kingdom) has begun in us. We are being made new because of Christ.
God's purpose in creation and salvation for the whole world, is unfolding as it is ALL being pulled in to this reality that will be, when all things are reconciled to God. Reconciled either as Saviour or judge, but in the end God will put all things right, every life whether they acknowledge God or not are being pulled into this reality at the end of time, like stars across the universe into a black hole. They may move on their own path at the moment but the time will come when they will have no other option but to be called into this ultimate reality that God has for purposed to bring about in Christ. A time when God will be all in all. A time when Sin is dealt with, both the penalty of sin and the effects of sin in our bodies, in our persons as part of a re-created order.
Foundationally, we need to understand that there is both order and purpose in our reality of the created world. That like it or lump it the sovereign Lord has determined where the world has come from and where this world is going to. And this directs the stage of reality upon which we find ourselves, upon which we must move. And there is nothing we can do to change that. And quite frankly I'm glad there is nothing we can do to change that, because we have a tendency to muck things up with our choices!
Summary:
SO today we have had a chance to think about the reality that God made mankind in his own image as part of his ordered creation with purpose, (to rule and be fruitful) and with bounds (don’t eat from the tree!). But Mankind chose to act and determine something that was outside his God given authority and as result, mankind was cast out from God’s presence and was impacted by his sin in his whole person, & the whole world was also impacted by his Sin.
So now mankind’s ability to discern rightly his path through creation has been scarred. Scarred just like this world’s ability to act orderly and reveal itself as having order. These things cause working out the right decision to be downright hard, but worst of all mankind is left to determine his own way before the intense gaze of a holy God.
But the gracious creator has acted to rectify the problem, of the broken relationship, of the brokenness of sin, through his great act of salvation, the forgiveness of sin and renewal from sin, that comes from the death and resurrection of his son Jesus.
In his death and resurrection, and in the proclamation of this truth, Christ’s kingdom has begun, and his creation heads towards it’s renewal when his kingdom is consummated.
To make good Choices: to Discern our way through this world, we need to firstly understand that God has acted with a purpose for our world in creation and salvation and because of that we are to live as people who exist in a world with order, bounds and a purpose, that are shaped by a timeframe.
God is acting towards bringing all things under one head even Christ, and that will be a time when God will be all in all. That is God’s decreed choice, the question is;
How will we, as mankind in this purposeful reality, chose to live in response?
How shall we use our window’s of opportunity wisely?
How shall we live in response to God’s plan in his creation?
And that will be where we will continue our topic next week!
The aim of this particular preaching series, or series of talks really, is to help us think Christianly, about the world that God has given us to live in. Normally we have talks directly from a set passage from the Bible, and this is entirely right, in terms of our confidence that God really does speak to us truly about our world, from his word.
However often, due to the constraints of time, we don't spend much time thinking about the nitty-gritty of life in the world.
So over the next few weeks we are going to spend some time working hard at thinking about how God call us to engage with him and live in his world in ways that are consistent with his call, in order that we may both glorify God and serve our fellow man.
Over the next two weeks in particular we are going to think about a framework for making choices in God's world, a set of glasses if you like for viewing the world, and in a couple of weeks time we will finish the series by thinking about the nitty-gritty of how to make decisions in light of these truths.
Choices Part I: Discerning our way through the world!
We live in an age of choices, because we live in an age of endless options. You could even say (fairly I think), that we live in an age of unparalleled options throughout history. From trying to find a new mobile phone plan or Internet plan, through to which kind of milk you are going to buy as you look at the 14 different types. You start to realize we are constantly bombarded with choices, because we are bombarded with options.
How do we choose which one is right?
How do we choose which one is right for us?
And is this choice only right for us in-particular?
Or are some options right for everyone irrespective of their situation?
Now It seems to me, that the two main pieces of logic that still hold the greatest way in our society today when it comes to choices are;
‘Firstly, keep your options open for as long as you can,
and Secondly, to quote the great 20th Century philosopher Mick Jagger, "I'm free to do what I want any old time".
So the first approach of keeping your options open may sound like great wisdom, and there is truth in it at times. But in reality usually having lots more options, just makes making any given decision all the more daunting.
The hard choice is when you have 1000 things to pick from,
the easiest choice to make is when you have, well, one thing to pick from. Then the decision is easy, it makes itself.
Keeping your options unendingly open, may sound like wisdom, but in the end it can be stifling, because any decision to be a good decision, needs to be made within the allotted time, within the window of opportunity that it exists in. A good decision made too late, is just another bad decision.
Keeping your options open, it seems to me most of the time, is just an excuse to not have to make a decision on all, an excuse to not have to commit to something you have chosen. Now it could be because of laziness or it could be because fear, but mostly it comes because of an uncompromising self-interest, expressed as a desire to not have to take responsibility for (and bear the consequences of) our own decisions.
One of my mates growing up was a classic for this approach because, well he was just out and out lazy. In fact every Saturday night were used to meet at his place to try to work out something to do for that Saturday night (before mobiles obviously). And basically we met at his house because, well he was too lazy to go to someone else's. And we would come up with all sorts of suggestions about what we should do with the night, and his response every time was, "let's just wait and see what happens.". And our response was, “what will happen, is exactly what happened last week, which is what happened the week before, which is nothing!”. Trying to keep your options open inevitably, is actually an act of self-interested laziness, and it misunderstands the nature of our world, with the reality that good decisions need to be made in good time, because there is always a window of opportunity for them to be made within.
To Just constantly leave our options open, and let things drift along, to the point that we have no decision left to make, because time runs out and circumstances act upon us, is not only self-centered laziness, it is in fact an abrogation of our God-given responsibility as discerning, thinking and acting people made in the image of God.
Secondly, the wisdom of our age says "I am free to do what I want any old time". This thought has also profoundly misunderstood the nature of the reality we exist within.
All freedom we have in this world is bounded, and it is primarily bounded for our good. God created this world with order and purpose. Much of the order that God has placed in the world is discernible by us through observation and wisdom. For instance I am free to go for a walk around the block, but I am not free to jump off a 10 Storey building!
This isn't a bad thing it's just an acknowledgement of reality. I am a bounded person and this is okay as part of God’s created order, part of the order of creation that wisdom can discern as a means of living successfully through this world.
And while much of the order of creation may be observable to us, there is also much that needs to be revealed to us. In fact we know the most important reality of our world needs to be revealed to us, that there is a God who has made this world, and he made it with an order and a purpose.
God's purpose for creation isn't observable to us with the naked eye (if I can use those terms), God's purpose for reality needs to be revealed to us, and he does that in his word the Bible.
The wise person, the godly person, realises that God created our world, with bounds, order and purpose. The wise person takes the time to discern how to put themselves in right relationships with this reality and act accordingly. The wise person discerns how to live in right relations with God and his world, and then chooses to act consistently with that.
Choices: are about discerning our way through the world we live in.
Now it is worth saying that choices aren't always easy are they?
Some choices aren’t that bad, in fact they are relatively trivial, like the challenge of buying the right type of milk, but others are quite devastatingly difficult, like whether to keep the life-support machine on, or to switch it off?
But making choices is part of our responsibility of being people made in the image of God in his created order.
So at the moment (and over the next few weeks) we are thinking about how can I better understand God and his purposes through his word and his world, in order that I may make timely good choices and live consistently with his purposes.
So that really we need to ask the question,
Why is it that choices can be so hard to make?
Well there are a number of reasons that decisions can be very hard to make, but roughly they break down into three major categories.
Firstly, the problem with us.
Secondly, the problem with the world.
And thirdly, the problem of God.
So firstly the problems with us.
A. In our very nature, mankind, human beings, are bounded people. We can only exist in a certain space and a certain time, within which we are able to act, we can't be everywhere and we can't do everything at once. So we are bounded by our own finite existence. This means we have to choose where we are going to be, and what we're going to do based on a priority of importance. We can't do everything.
B. Also as mankind, human beings, we are bounded people, because we have finite knowledge. We do not know everything, we can't know everything, we can't even know everything that is within our own sphere of influence, much less everything that will be.
For instance we can know we are able to perform a certain action, but we can't know in advance, the full consequences that the action will have, we can only estimate based on the finite knowledge we have.
So, We have finite knowledge, we can know some things truly, but never exhaustively.
C. Also time not only impacts upon our ability to be in one place at one time, it also limits the opportunity that is available for us to act.
Choices in this world need to be made within certain time limits, or otherwise they turn out to be no decision at all. A decision to wait longer before leaving a house, (to see if it is really necessary), in the face of the overwhelming warnings of an impending natural disaster, has the capacity to turn a natural disaster, into a human tragedy. Choices have to happen within real-time limitations. There is a window of opportunity for any given decision because we are bounded people with finite time to make choices.
And we haven't even got to the hard part to yet, because the Bible tells us that that not only are we bounded in our space and time and our knowledge, but worse than that, we are people who are profoundly marred by the impact of sin in this world.
Back in the beginning, back at the beginning of the Bible in a book called Genesis, we read the story of how God created the world. He Created this world from his own goodness and generosity and he created this world good, in fact the Bible says very good. And the peak of God's creation was Mankind himself. Mankind was made in the image of God.
Now what that means in its fulness is often the subject of debate (and it is a big subject), But of all the other things that it may mean, it certainly means this. Mankind was made to rule as God’s agent over his world. Not rule like some sort of tyrant by abusing it and using it for his own ends, but ruling as God's agent as God would, to lovingly, wisely and caringly preserve it and cause it to flourish.
The opening scenes of the Bible begin with mankind in the Garden of Eden with God himself. God and man are in direct relationship, and God gives mankind responsibility in the garden. Now if the Bible says anything, it certainly says that God is sovereign over all things, God knows all things, it wasn't as though God was waiting for mankind to discover things in order for him to understand them.
But the Bible points out that even in his sovereignty God generosity gave mankind a real creative agency to be God’s agent in the world and to help it multiply and be fruitful.
In fact mankind being in the image of God, has a responsibility and authority to determine things in God's world. As you may remember God brought the animals before man to allow man to name them, and whatever he chose as their name, that was their name.
Now I’m pretty confident God knew that a zebra was a zebra, but it shows mankind was given real agency to make real determinations in God's world. And that is one aspect of what it truly means to be made in the image of God. A responsibility to make determinations in line with God’s goodness and purpose in God's world. Mankind has a purpose, because God made mankind to live towards a certain goal, in line with God’s purpose. And that goal was the good of all creation.
But not only was Mankind given responsibility to determine. He was also given bounds. Now they may have only been small bounds, (which I think reflects the fact of how close God was in relationship with mankind, in a state of personal connection), but mankind was given real bounds, the bounds of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Mankind broke that bound and ate from the tree, and because of that God was faithful in his promise and punished mankind for his sin.
The consequences of mankind’s Sin were significant not only for original man, but for all mankind, all human beings, who came afterwards, and in fact for the whole of creation. God removed mankind from the garden, and Mankind now had a mediated relationship with God, not a direct relationship like it had been in the garden. And because of that sin, God cursed the ground & mankind now lived a world that was a place of brokenness and disorder.
All of God's creation has been touched by the curse of sin. Because of mankind's rebellion against God, because of mankind’s unwillingness to do the right thing, by stepping outside the bounds got had set for him.
The original Sin, of the original pair of humans, was to disbelieve the truth about God's word for his world, his word of bounds that is both truthful and gracious. The first people doubted, and fell to the temptation of the devil, which is still alive and well today, the temptation "did God really say?". The implication being does God really know what he is talking about in his world, or is he just a spoil sport, a nark, a wowser, putting bounds so that you can't have fun like you should.
Well the subsequent disaster of that decision to ignore God’s good bounds cannot be stated in too emphatic terms. God was right when he said, “don't go beyond the bounds, because it's bad you, and consequences will follow.” God spoke truthfully in his word, and God still speaks truly in his word to us today. Mankind has always had bounds, because God has spoken truly to us about how we should live the good life he intended inside his bounds in his world by his word.
Mankind bears in his existence the marks of his decision. Sin touches all areas of life, but it is important to note, it does not make all material things evil, like the Greek philosophers said, instead, however, all material things have been impacted by Sin. Nothing works perfectly like it should. Nothing is inclined in itself to please God and his purposes like it should.
But despite the impact of sin all things can still be used by God for his good purposes should he desire it.
But this truth 0f Sin impacts us in making choices. Sin impacts the ability of our rational mind to understand, it impacts the ability of our emotions to properly discern truth, and sin especially impacts the ability of our will, to do the right thing that we know we ought to. Sin impacts on our entire person and our ability to discern what is right good and true, and then to carry it out in this world. The inclinations of our rational mind, our emotional mind, and our will, are away from God in themselves, and they need to be renewed.
Is it any wonder that “we find” making choices is so hard in this world!
Not only are we finite beings bounded in our knowledge, bounded in time and space, but even the things we have discerned, those finite amounts of knowledge are profoundly impacted and marred by Sin that distorts the reality itself and our perception of it.
So Firstly, you see there are quite a lot of problems “with us” when it comes to making decisions.
But Secondly, there are also problems with the reality that we encounter when we try and make decisions. The creation that was made so ordered and good has also been marred by Sin, and so it no longer works exactly like it should, and we are unable to discern it exactly like we should be in order to live in the right way in this world.
On top of that we were made finite to start with so there is no possible way we can conceive or perceive or understand the entirety of the reality that we find ourselves living within.
We cannot possibly know everything that is happening, (and in particular), we certainly can't possibly know the consequences of all our actions. It just isn't possible, and that was before the impact of sin on the world and us. There is a brokenness to us and to our world that we cannot fix ourselves, and this is a real problem for us trying to find our way through this world.
There is the Theatre of life which is this created order amongst which we must move in this life, and it is one fraught with fear and trepidation for us as we make decisions because we are unable to perceive it properly, or to fully understand the consequences of our decisions, prior to us making them.
So let’s get this straight, Firstly, we are broken. Secondly, the world is broken, but believe it or not it actually gets worse than that!
Because Thirdly, there is the problem of God. After the fall in the garden when God removed mankind from the garden, fellowship with God was broken, and we know that God became our judge. Like Cane, we are left to wander in the wilderness, in a deep-seated fear of judgement, in the true knowledge of real reality, that we are sinful person in the eyes of a holy God, and that truth runs deep into the core of our being.
The Psalmist once asked “what is man that you are mindful of him”, and the thinking moral man knows all too well what it is to be the subject of God's holy gaze. To know that none of the wrong we do is beyond his purview, that each decision we make is another opportunity to rack up more charges to our rap sheet for when we appear before the judgment thrown of the one true living in holy God.
Is it any wonder we find choices hard in this world?
We as thinking agents are finite, and worse than that we are smudged by Sin.
The objects of our observation, the world itself has a brokenness in the fabric of its being, that makes it impossible to discern the right thing to do every time.
And to top that we live life under the gaze of a holy and just God who will hold every wrong choice to account.
Is it any wonder we find decisions hard?
The secularists, the person who believes that this life is all that there is, will ask the question, "how do I find my way in this world?".
This question is to ask the question of the order of life. It's an attempt to discern the order of the reality we inhabit now and to work out how to move in it wisely.
But this question of the secularist is the wrong question. Because it starts with the wrong premise. It fails to observe that not only do you need to know the order of reality and right relationships in this world, more than that, you need to know their purpose. The reality we are in, has an order to it (amongst which we must move) but it also has a purpose. Creation itself is moving towards a goal. Which means we as people within this creation \ are also moving towards this goal.
So in terms of our choices: Discerning our way through the world. The over-arching principle to realise is, that everything has a purpose, a goal. The whole of creation has a purpose, a purpose where God is bringing order from the chaos that was brought about by Sin.
We read again today the chapters of revelation 4 & 5, reminding us of the goodness of God and his purpose in his world. These wonderful scenes remind us of who God is and what he has done, and indeed what he is doing in our world.
There can be no doubt that the Bible always starts with the picture of God being utterly sovereign. He is sovereign in all his actions and purposes and goals. He is sovereign in his act of creation, as he brings the world into being without opposition, according to his good purpose, according to his set order. But not only is God utterly sovereign, he is also good. He creates the world good, and when mankind rebels against him and brings Sin into this world, he does not wipe the slate clean and start again, but instead he shows his goodness by bringing his son into the world to save lost mankind.
God’s purposes in creation and salvation overlap, as he brings them all to the final close spoken of in the scene of Revelation 4 & 5 and culminating in the scene in Revelation 21 and 22, where all things have been Reconciled to God, because of, and through the lamb who was slain.
At the centre of all reality purpose and meaning in this world is Jesus Christ and his cross and his resurrection. This end scene tells us that, in no uncertain terms. In his death on the cross in our place, Jesus brought us peace with God, the God who had cast us out of the garden has now welcomed us back into fellowship. The debt of our sin has been paid, and we can be forgiven and have a new relationship with God.
But not only that, the son of God Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, not only died but he was raised to life to inaugurate his new kingdom. Jesus who was the agent of creation in the first place, through his resurrection has inaugurated a new creation. The new Kingdom of God that Jesus brings in, of which he is the king, is a time of new creation. Jesus not only paid the penalty of our sin, but he also acted in order to correct the effects of our Sin. In Christ the new creation has begun.
And because of Christ, those of us who have accepted his offer of forgiveness, the new creation (the new Kingdom) has begun in us. We are being made new because of Christ.
God's purpose in creation and salvation for the whole world, is unfolding as it is ALL being pulled in to this reality that will be, when all things are reconciled to God. Reconciled either as Saviour or judge, but in the end God will put all things right, every life whether they acknowledge God or not are being pulled into this reality at the end of time, like stars across the universe into a black hole. They may move on their own path at the moment but the time will come when they will have no other option but to be called into this ultimate reality that God has for purposed to bring about in Christ. A time when God will be all in all. A time when Sin is dealt with, both the penalty of sin and the effects of sin in our bodies, in our persons as part of a re-created order.
Foundationally, we need to understand that there is both order and purpose in our reality of the created world. That like it or lump it the sovereign Lord has determined where the world has come from and where this world is going to. And this directs the stage of reality upon which we find ourselves, upon which we must move. And there is nothing we can do to change that. And quite frankly I'm glad there is nothing we can do to change that, because we have a tendency to muck things up with our choices!
Summary:
SO today we have had a chance to think about the reality that God made mankind in his own image as part of his ordered creation with purpose, (to rule and be fruitful) and with bounds (don’t eat from the tree!). But Mankind chose to act and determine something that was outside his God given authority and as result, mankind was cast out from God’s presence and was impacted by his sin in his whole person, & the whole world was also impacted by his Sin.
So now mankind’s ability to discern rightly his path through creation has been scarred. Scarred just like this world’s ability to act orderly and reveal itself as having order. These things cause working out the right decision to be downright hard, but worst of all mankind is left to determine his own way before the intense gaze of a holy God.
But the gracious creator has acted to rectify the problem, of the broken relationship, of the brokenness of sin, through his great act of salvation, the forgiveness of sin and renewal from sin, that comes from the death and resurrection of his son Jesus.
In his death and resurrection, and in the proclamation of this truth, Christ’s kingdom has begun, and his creation heads towards it’s renewal when his kingdom is consummated.
To make good Choices: to Discern our way through this world, we need to firstly understand that God has acted with a purpose for our world in creation and salvation and because of that we are to live as people who exist in a world with order, bounds and a purpose, that are shaped by a timeframe.
God is acting towards bringing all things under one head even Christ, and that will be a time when God will be all in all. That is God’s decreed choice, the question is;
How will we, as mankind in this purposeful reality, chose to live in response?
How shall we use our window’s of opportunity wisely?
How shall we live in response to God’s plan in his creation?
And that will be where we will continue our topic next week!
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