Monday, March 24, 2008

God's Self-Revelation

My heart burns with the desire for loved ones, friends, and people I've never met to know God and God's saving, healing love for them. I've often wondered how God's wrath can be expressed toward the unrighteousness and disbelief of people who seemingly don't even know the truth about God.

In studying Paul's letter to the Romans in recent weeks, I've been reminded of an amazing spiritual truth that I'll touch on briefly today. St. Paul speaks to the question about how God deals with people who have different levels of exposure to divine truth. He seems to be answering my objection as to how God can rightfully "be angry" at people, and "punish" people for suppressing truth that they've never had.

Paul says that when it comes to the awareness of God--to knowing the truth of God's existence--all humans are without excuse. He teaches that God reveals Godself to every person on the planet. In other words, my objection is not valid! There are no people on the earth who have an excuse or a warrant to protest the wrath of God against their unrighteousness and sin.

This is because God has made Godself evident--God reveals himself. The Apostle says: "That which is known about God is evident among them; for God made it evident to them" (Romans 1:19). How did God do that? In the middle of verse 20, St. Paul says, "being understood through what he has made." God makes sure that a knowledge of himself does not just happen coincidentally. God does something to make himself known--he provides self-revelation through his poetic, (Greek: poiema), creative works. He made the world out of nothing and created the universe and everything in it as his own artisitic, poetic expression of himself.

God planned, designed, acted, crafted, created and made. And in doing that, Paul says in verse 19, God made himself evident to all humankind. The universe is an inescapable poem about God!

In summary, In Romans 1:19-21, Paul is arguing that:

1. The Creator's power and deity are evident (verses 19b, 20). God is the creator of all things and the master communicator of himself.

2. All people know God! Paul says in verse 21: "They knew God." Yes, the truth is suppressed (by science, philosophy, secularism, ...), but it is there--distorted though it might appear to be--for God does not leave himself without a witness to every mind and heart.

3. Humans tend to suppress the knowledge of God. They suppress this knowledge and do not glorify or give him thanks (verse 21b).

William Dembski in his book The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press) points out that many well-known scientists must continually suppress the suspicion that there is design (poiema) in the universe. For example, he quotes Richard Dawkins, an "arch-Darwinian" who says: "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." And he quotes Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, who says: "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."

Paul said that the truth of God's "designed things" must be constantly suppressed (lest scientists come face to face with their Maker and be compelled to glorify him and give him thanks). Those of us who love and worship God and revel in his glory labor with all our strength, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to help open people's hearts to the beautiful truth of God and his loving, creative presence around and within us.

4. Everyone is without excuse before God. Every person on the planet is deserving of being under God's wrath. We are all "without excuse." Nobody can bring a legitimate protest against God's justice in this. The greatest tragedy in our culture is not so much the use of illegal drugs, participation in illicit sex, murder, theft, poverty, homelessness or abuse. The pivotal tragedy is that people are trying to "live" without the hope that comes from hearing the Gospel--the good news of God's love for us and his full provision through Christ for our escaping the wrath we certainly deserve.

You and I have the remedy--we're walking, running, skipping joyfully the path of escape. We're trusting God for salvation, healing and freedom! The free gift of God's perfect righteousness [not God's wrath] is offered to all and can be freely received through trusting our loving God.

We have in our heart and in our mouth the most powerful strategy for healing the world through connecting people to God's saving love for them--this powerful truth is called he Gospel of Jesus Christ! Let's believe and be transformed by the Gospel, and take God's constant, loving, saving presence with us into our world and beyond!

Grateful for Jesus and his clear revelation of God!

Duff

Monday, March 17, 2008

The True Light Coming Into The World

In St. John the Evangelist's words, "The Word...the true light...was coming into the world...that had its being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him" (John 1:9-11).

In our world today it seems the darkness is thicker than ever. Our church is called "PHOENIX LIGHT & LIFE" and we must continually ask ourselves what is required of those who desire to bring light into the darkness, "to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord's year of favor" (Luke 4:18-19). What is required of the person who responds to God's call to enter fully into the dark realities of this present time and speak a word of hope?

Henri Nouwen, years ago, noted the challenges of ministering with a presence and message that are "counter-culture." He wrote (specifically to pastors): "The pressures in ministry are enormous, the demands are increasing, and the satisfaction is diminishing." How do we continue in the direction of being a vital witness of Christ during times that are often filled with temptations to unfaithfulness, the comfort of self-centeredness, and discouragement or despair?

In a world that continues to prefer the darkness to the light (John 3:19), let us heed the counsel of St. Paul: "Do not model yourselves on the behavior of the world around you, but let your behavior change, modeled by your new mind. This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do" (Romans 12:2).

In a nutshell, we gain a new mind by turning from the world's darkness--going into times of solitude, being silent, and praying. These are three time-tested ways of preventing the world from shaping us into its image. These are three paths to a vital, energized, life in the Spirit!

So, we can bring light and life into this dark world as we discipline ourselves in the spiritual path of 1) Turning away from the world's darkness--developing a lifestyle that includes the discipline of solitude; 2) Regularly going into times of silence, and 3) Praying always.

Nouwen in his classic book, "The Way of the Heart" emphasizes that solitude shows us the way to let our behavior be shaped "not by the compulsions of the world but by our new mind, the mind of Christ" (p. 91). He suggests that silence prevents us from being "suffocated by our wordy world and teaches us to speak the Word of God." Finally, Nouwen points out that "unceasing prayer gives solitude and silence their real meaning." In prayer we enter, through our heart, into the heart of God and we connect to God's powerful creative and recreative love.

This Easter, and always, my prayer is that the true light of Christ will be known within us and then shown through us!

Happy Easter!

Pastor Duff Gorle

Thursday, March 6, 2008

An Alien Righteousness

Dear Friend,

We are presently in a teaching series on Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome. As you probably know, the book of Romans has a central theme of faith, or trust in God. All God's good gifts are received by us through exercising faith in Jesus Christ.

Christianity is a community of believers in Jesus Christ. We belong to God and one another through and in Jesus Christ.

The Christian is a person who finds her salvation, deliverance and justification (being made right with God) in Jesus Christ alone. We Christians know the Word of God pronounces us guilty, even when we may not feel guilty, and God's Word pronounces us righteous, even when we do not feel that we are righteous at all. We no longer trust in our own judgment on spiritual matters, but live by the claims of God.

I've recently been reading some of Dietrich Bohnhoeffer's wonderful thoughts on Christian Community. He noted that if someone asks a Christian, "Where is your salvation, your righteousness?" he can never point to himself. He points to the Word of God in Jesus Christ which assures him salvation and righteousness. The Christian view is that help must come from outside ourselves--and it does come to us daily and in fresh ways through the Word of Jesus Christ who brings us into connection with God's precious gifts of redemption, righteousness, a renewed innocence, and a joyful inner blessedness. The Reformers referred to this righteousness as an "alien righteousness" that comes from outside us (extra nos).

The fact that we are brothers and sisters in the Christian community only through Christ is of immeasurable significance. We each belong in this blessed community solely by reason of what Christ has done for each of us. We are who we are by reason of Christ. God is teaching us to meet one another as God has met us in Christ (Romans 15:7).

Christian fellowship is not an ideal that we must reach; rather it is a beautiful reality created by our loving God in Christ where we have the privilege of participating for our own healing and growth in love.