2-21-10

“All this can be yours if you worship me…” Luke 4:7

● Notice that when the Devil said that the kingdoms were his and he could give it to whomever he pleased, Jesus did not correct his theology.

“authority”- the right to do as one pleases.

Authority functions for one essential purpose: to establish order (i.e. parental, governmental, divine). We must also remember that the authority we exercise is “delegated authority”.

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;…”

Psalm 115:16 “The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to man.”

Psalm 8:3-8

“When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers – the moon and the stars you have set in place –what are mortals that you should think of us, mere humans that you should care for us? For you made us only a little lower than God, and you crowned us with glory and honor. You put us in charge of everything you made, giving us authority over all things –the sheep and the cattle and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.” 

 Too often, we underestimate the scope and magnitude of the role of humanity in creation.

Of everything included in the creation narrative, humanity is distinguished as image-bearing creation meaning, there is something of the Creator invested in us; there is a God-consciousness that we possess and to which we are able to respond that is unique to us. ‘Sovereignty’ and ‘participation’ are not mutually-exclusive.

● Although we were entrusted with it (creation), we were never meant to establish our own rule of authority. We were created to reflect his glory, establish his authority and maintain his order on the earth. In the absence of sin, we could be trusted to conduct ourselves in a manner that was a good reflection of who God is.

● The story suggests that man’s defiance against God actually caused us to forfeit that authority and surrender it to another created being who was the personification of pride (self-interest; self-exaltation).

            As a result, whereas the earth had been entrusted to the loving-care of a humanity in vital-union with God, it was now under the rule of one totally bent on sabotaging God’s authority and distorting the goodness of his creation, especially humanity as his image-bearing creation. I think that a more important dilemma for humanity than a poor ‘self-image’, is a distorted ‘God-image’.

● The point being, when those in authority--- those called upon to rule it and care for it as a reflection of God’s love and care, rebel, everything becomes disorderly… everything goes wrong.

There is the fundamental issue of worship: who do you love? Who gets your heart? What establishes significance in your life?

It was to be the glory of God (his otherness and unique approach to us) that gave our lives meaning; weight, significance. He was to be what mattered most to us. “We were made for God”, as one author said, and that’s why nothing else will satisfy us.

There is the essential struggle between dependence or independence: allegiance or autonomy.

What we contend with is not only this deep-seated desire for transcendence (the other; ultimate meaning), but this insatiable desire for autonomy--- self-directing freedom or independence.

Read Romans 1

Adam was entrusted with the authority of God as a result of worship.

            “To be like God” was the offer which caught humanity’s attention: to be sovereign; to be in control; to have carry weight and authority; to determine our own destiny, so to speak.

● Adam exchanged that glory, the “truth of God for a lie

 (“the lie”: definite article present in original manuscripts). “The” lie is that something other than God is worthy to be worshipped; that our sense of life and meaning and identity can be found in something other than God. It is the ‘one’ lie from which all of the devastation proceeds.

● What was meant to be worshipped (God), we now use for our own selfish purposes; what was meant for our enjoyment, now captures our hearts and wins our devotion.

What happens once we make the exchange?
            First, is perpetual disillusionment as we find ourselves seeking ultimate meaning from that which can never make good on its promises.

            Sometimes, we don’t find out what really matters until we have wasted a great deal of time and energy on what doesn’t!

            Secondly, self-sufficiency results in rampant narcissism (self-absorption, egotism, self-importance)--- what the Bible calls “pride”.

            Thirdly, once we dismiss God and declare out autonomy, we face the consequences of relativism: the absence of an acceptable standard of set of values.

Those determinations become subjective and circumstantial. What can we expect to experience when the disorder within us is establishing cultural directives?

Since the earth was given to man, and man failed to trust and forfeited that authority, the only way for creation to be restored was if another man--- a new Adam, was to fulfill the original purposes of God and restore order.

Jesus’ success in the wilderness affirmed his sense of mission: that he would be the one chosen to be the “truly human one”; to reverse the effects of the first human’s decision and defeat the powers of evil which governed our lives and motivated our structures and lovingly restore order.

Because we were all created to worship, once we choose to reject God, our only option is to create a god of our choosing, or better yet, become one ourselves!

Humanity has not totally lost the image of God (still trace evidence of God in all of us), but only functions as image-bearing creation when we live “truthfully”.

            “Truth” can be described as, ‘the way things really are; the ways things were really meant to be’.

● Whenever truth exerts itself, it exposes all that’s false about ourselves and our ideas of God. When that happens, we experience this inner-turmoil that must either be eliminated by walking openly and honestly into the light of God’s truth, or silenced through pursuits which simply drown-out the noise.

 “suppress the truth”--- not denial, but living in ways that restrain it or hinder its progress (head the ship; stop it from making progress)

“distorted thinking and a darkened heart”--- it means that left to ourselves, we will reach all of the wrong conclusions and though appear to be wise, we will actually be fools.

● The description is of what life looks like when God says, “Okay, have it your way.” He doesn’t bring all of these things on us as punishment, he allows us to realize the self-destructive nature of our hearts and actions apart from him. What’s being revealed is both God’s true nature and our true nature.

Yes, you can have it all but not without the chaos and disorder which accompanies it.

Deception is the result of not being exposed to truth and  being exposed to it, but failing to respond.

            Word of caution: every time we are exposed to truth, yet fail to respond, something about our heart is hardened (to cover with a callus; to be dulled in our perception). Imagine actually becoming hardened to truth? Could there be any worse predicament? Even ignorance can be overcome with truth.

The fact is, we know much more truth than we actually translate into our experience.

                Truth can never be disconnected from the way we actually live our lives.

● It would be hard to find a sincere follower of Jesus who would overtly say that his ways cannot be taken seriously, but how often do we find our own ‘practical’ ways of making life work without him?

            Jesus refuses to allow us to think that is simply a ‘philosophy’… it is a person, a way to be followed.

● The truth that we gain must actually lead us toward Jesus and a commitment to learning life from him, otherwise, it is called “hypocrisy”.

The good news is that the world is being made right again, one broken, dysfunctional life at a time.

Jesus called it, coming into the “Kingdom”: people abandoning their own self-destructive pursuits of life apart from God and finding their lives reoriented around his loving purposes for them.

We are meant to ‘re-assume’ our rightful, God-designed place of authority where his dreams, his desires, his purposes become the rule-of-the-day.

● As the heart of man (center; motivator) is renewed and the life of man is re-ordered and re-aligned around God’s desires and purposes, mankind experiences ‘shalom’.