Christ - Part 3 (Compilation)

So the whole purpose of creation from this text is that there would be a platform for a phenomenon called the Church. And that that Church would have something to fulfill, for which reason God did not think it extravagant to create all things. And that purpose has nothing to do explicitly nor directly with the benefits that would come to men through the Church, or to the nations, or to the Church itself.

Rather, it's to make a demonstration of something called the manifold wisdom of God to some dimension of reality that is above the world and invisible, called the principalities and powers of the air. And that this is the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus. This is staggering, it's contradictory, it pulls the rug out from under our feet and provides a purpose that we had never once ever considered, and Paul says is the very reason for all creation.

What kind of a Church is it that could go on from generation to generation and never once consider and take to heart seriously God's purpose for all creation, for which reason he has established the Church. How dare we promote our programs and consider our activity independent of this central purpose for our being as Church. I want to say that the Church that gives scant attention to this, that chooses to ignore it, or that dismisses this as some kind of euphoric play on words that is nice to hear but not to be taken seriously, is ipso facto not the Church.

It's an institution, it's a band of enthusiasts who are itching to promote their own ministries, to perform things that they think to please God. It's not a Church that is concerned with that which pleases God according to his own definition and according to his own words. God thinks it important, he doesn't explain why, that a certain demonstration be made by the only agency on earth that can't conceivably make it, and for which reason he's created the earth, that it could sustain this phenomenon called the Church, and that purpose is for that Church to demonstrate to this invisible realm of principalities and powers, whoever they are, the manifold wisdom of God, and that is the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus.

Only if we are occupied with the eternal can we be of any significance in the now. The Church that is only occupied with now, that gives scant attention to those things that are eternal, is strangely and ironically irrelevant. If you want to be left alone, just ignore this text.

If you want to go on with business as usual and promote your individual ministries, just ignore this. And then they will say, Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who are you? You're not even worthy of our consideration. That Church that requires our attention and that causes us stark fear, is a Church that does not have to have a payoff and receive a benefit for taking to itself a purpose in God.

Even if that purpose threatens a consequence that will be painful, all the more is that very willingness itself the demonstration of that wisdom. Because there are two wisdoms in collision, and you need to understand that in this context, Paul is not talking about wisdom as cleverness or wise procedure or behavior on the basis of knowledge or experience. Maybe the better word for the kind of manifold wisdom that God is wanting made known, is a value, a system of values, a way of understanding.

There's a collision between value systems. One originates from below and has the Prince of Darkness as its author, and the whole world is enveloped and taken up with it, and never once questions its truth or legitimacy. For example, take care of number one.

If you don't, who will? Seek your own self-interest, the Declaration of Independence, the self-evident truth of the pursuit of happiness as being the commendable purpose for human existence. Avoid suffering and pain, pursue pleasure. Seek and take care of yourself.

Avoid loss, sacrifice. The wisdom of this world by which the whole world lives its life. It sounds rational, it's reasonable, it's addressed to the self-evident needs of men to put themselves first.

It's an appeal to self-interest, it's an appeal to self. So what about a church that is willing to adopt something as central to its whole purpose for being that offers no promise of any reward to itself? No advantage, no blessing, but on the contrary, that this will mark you before these powers because you are a people of such a kind as to put the eternal purpose of God before every other purpose. So you're willing even to suffer the opposition of the principalities and powers because you want to see the eternal purpose of God fulfilled, even though it offers no prospect of improvement or betterment or blessing, but only trial, opposition, persecution.

That is the wisdom of God. And only those who have a concern for the heart of God and the satisfaction of that heart will make His purpose their own. And that is the church.

Instead, the church is itchy, wanting to find something to do, has to have a program, needs to justify its existence precisely because it does not see its existence in any of the terms, but in responding and meeting the things that are immediate and about them. It has not seen what would have given it security and foundation in God, namely the taking up of the eternal purpose. It would have freed it from the necessity and the itch to do and to perform.

Something that precedes and is greater than doing and performing is being. For more information, visit www.fema.org