Latest / Voddie Baucham Sermons / Voddie Baucham - Dr. Voddie Baucham February 12, 2020

Transcript

Voddie Baucham - Dr. Voddie Baucham February 12, 2020 · Voddie Baucham Sermons

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Well, good evening. It is a delight to be here
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: with you this evening. As was shared, my family and
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I currently live, we reside in Lusaka, Zambia, the capital
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: city of Zambia. We've been there for the last four
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and a half years. We'll make five years this August
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: that we've been there. Me, Bridget, our seven youngest children
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: are actually here on furlough right now, and we leave.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: We go back on the 15th, heading back to Lusaka.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It is time to go back home. We've been here
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: for a while now, for a couple of months now,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and are looking forward to heading back home. I do
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: bring you greetings from the African Christian University. and from
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: the Reformed Baptist Church Association of Zambia, who started the
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: African Christian University. ACU is a classical Christian liberal arts
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: biblical worldview university, currently offering degrees in agriculture and business
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and education, theology, fine arts, getting ready to add biology
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and chemistry, and then a couple of graduate degrees in
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: theology as well. we started four years ago. I had
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the privilege of being part of that team that was
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: there on the ground when everything launched, and Lord willing,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: we'll have our first graduates this year. So we're really
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: excited about that, excited about what God is doing there,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: what He has been doing there, what He continues to
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: do there. So pray for us as we continue that work.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Pray for our family in particular. We When we went,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: our thinking was that we would go for a three
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to five year stint. And as we were there for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: three years, it started looking a lot more like five.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And now we're coming up on five years. And yeah,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: who knows? Who knows? So we'll definitely be there for
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: more time. We're just not sure how much more time.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: If it was up to me, I'd be buried there.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But We'll see. We'll see what the Lord says. All right.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: If you have your Bibles with you, open them with
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: me to the book of Colossians. The book of Colossians.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I want us to look at a very familiar passage
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: of Scripture here in the book of Colossians. One of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the things that's been very interesting, I told you it's
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a classical Christian liberal arts biblical worldview university. And when
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: we start talking about our worldview, there are a couple
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of ways that we can think about our worldview. One
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: way that we can think about our worldview is that
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: there are elements of our worldview, right? Our worldview, you
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: can think about a worldview like this. You can think
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: about it in terms of the lens through which we
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: view the world. Think about it in terms of a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: set of glasses. You've heard the terminology, looking at the
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: world through rose-colored glasses, right? If you put on glasses
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: with a certain tint, then everything that you look at,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you see through that same tint. That's what your worldview does, right?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: It determines how you see the world. Another way you
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: can think about it is it's like a map. And
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's something I'm doing or something,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: but it's like a map, okay? Or think about it.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: It's like your GPS. It does a couple of things
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for you. It orients you. It lets you know where
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you are in relation to where you're going, right? Your
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: worldview does that for you. Your worldview looks out and says,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: here's where we are. Here's where we're going. There's home, right?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: And it helps you to make sense of things. A
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: last way that it's been described is It's like a
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: puzzle picture. I don't know if you're one of these
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: people who does puzzles. I'm not a puzzle person particularly.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I like different kinds of stuff. But,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you know, puzzle people are cool. But here's what you're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: probably not if you're a puzzle person. You're probably not
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the type of person that gets the big 5,000, 10,000-piece puzzle,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: pours out all the pieces, and then throws away the box.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: You're probably not who you are. And if you are, okay.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: But you probably have the box up there so you
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: can see the composition of the picture so that when
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you pick up a piece, you have an idea at
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: least of what part of the puzzle it goes in. See,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: that's what your worldview does, right? So life throws something
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: at you. You've got this piece that seems out of context.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: You don't know what to do with it. Your worldview
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: helps you understand what to do with it, okay? So
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: this is the way your worldview functions. But there's a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: couple of ways that we can define our worldviews, and
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: one of them is the elements of our worldview, particularly
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: what we believe about God, man, truth, knowledge, and ethics.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Let me give you those five again. God, what we
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: believe about God. Man, what do we believe about man? Truth,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: what do we believe about truth? Is it knowable? Is
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it accessible? Knowledge, how do we know things? And then finally, ethics,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: what's right, what's wrong, right? So you can gauge a
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: person's worldview by looking at how they answer those five questions,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: questions about who God is, who man is, what truth is,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: how we know, and what ethics are, okay? And so
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: in the Christian worldview, for example, Our view of God
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is theistic. God is a necessary personal creator, right? That's
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: our view of God. Others would view God, well, others
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: would be atheistic, right? You see that there is no God.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Our view of man, we view man as special creation, okay?
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: There'd be others who would view man as the product
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: of evolution, right? Our view of truth, we believe that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: truth is absolute and universal, right? That which corresponds to reality.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Others would believe that truth is relative, be a different worldview.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Our view of knowledge, how do we know things? There
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: are those out there who believe that, you know, you
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: only know things that you can see and touch and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: taste and hear and smell and so on and so forth.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: We believe that knowledge comes through reason and revelations. We
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: know things by those senses that God has given us,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: but ultimately what trumps those things is what God has
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: revealed to us in his word, okay? And then, finally, ethics.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: We believe that there are things that are true and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: right for all people in all places and all times.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: And ethics are not negotiable. They're not cultural. They don't
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: shift and change. They're absolute, okay? Okay? So when you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: look at the elements of our worldview, that would be it.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: There's another way, though. There's another way that we can
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: communicate worldview. And that's through what's called a metanarrative. Metanarrative
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: is the overarching story. The overarching story that explains the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: world and why the world is the way it is.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: That overarching story is the lens that we look through.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: It's the GPS that says, okay, here's where we are.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's the puzzle picture that says, okay, this piece of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: life right here, it goes right there. The metanarrative. And
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: what I want us to do is I want us
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to look at two metanarratives. One metanarrative is the metanarrative
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: of our culture at large. It's a bit simplified. And
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: then I want us to look at the way Biblical
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Christianity would counter that metanarrative, okay? Now, this metanarrative is
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: going to answer some questions for us. Four questions in particular.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: It's the four questions that every metanarrative has to answer,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: regardless of where you are in the world. And it's
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: been very interesting for me living in another part of
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: the world, in another continent, I mean, we've lived outside
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: of the country before. We lived in the U.K. Different worldview,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: but very similar. It's kind of like English, right? The
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: worldview situation there was kind of like the language situation.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I realize they speak English. I speak American, right? They
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: made it very clear that I do not speak the
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Queen's English. Very similar, but yet different. Same thing. Right? Now,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I'm in a part of the world where the worldview
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is very different. Very different than the one with which
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm familiar. But regardless of where you go, Eastern, Western, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Everybody's worldview, everybody's metanarrative is answering these four questions. Y'all
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: looking at me like, can you give them to us?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Especially certain people. I'm not going to say any names,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but you're sitting there with your notes like, you know,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I got one, two, three, four. I need to get
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to just question number one. Who am I? Question number two,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: why am I here? Question number three, what's wrong with
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the world? Question number four, how can what is wrong
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: be made right? Every worldview, every worldview metanarrative is concerned
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: with those four questions. And if you want to understand
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: someone's worldview, All you have to know is how they
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: answer those four questions. And I find that it's a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: lot easier than the elements of the worldview, right? You
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: ask somebody about their view of God and their view
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of man, their view of truth, their view of knowledge,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: their view of ethics, you know, they may not have
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: ready answers for those questions. But you start talking about
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: who am I? Who is man? Who are we? Now,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you get a picture of somebody's worldview.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: And they'll answer that. They'll tell you, right? And by
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and large, you'll get some version of we are the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: product of evolutionary processes. We are the result of evolutionary processes, right?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: As my friends over at Answers in Genesis like to say,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: from the goo to you by way of the zoo, right? Right?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: You'll get some version of that, which is interesting, especially
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: here in the U.S., because the overwhelming majority of people, 75%,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: 80% of people, claim to be theists, claim to believe
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: in God, right? But at the same time, when we
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: ask the question, who is man, right? Who are we?
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: The answer is we are the result of random evolutionary processings.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: The second question, why are we here? Why are we here?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: And ultimately, if we're honest, if the answer to the
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: first question is we're the result of random evolutionary processes,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the answer to the second question is we're here to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: consume and enjoy. Get all you can. Can all you get.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Sit on the can. That's why we're here, to pursue pleasure. Okay? Now, again,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: we don't really like to be that honest about it.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: We want to be altruistic. We want to say, you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that we should do some good or whatever. But ultimately, ultimately,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: if I'm just the result of random evolutionary processes that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I'm here to consume and enjoy, What is wrong with
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the world? Because everybody's worldview acknowledges that there's something wrong
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: with the world. Everybody's metanarrative has something to explain what
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: is wrong with the world. And ultimately, in our culture,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: the most common response to that question is, what is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: wrong with the world is that we are either insufficiently
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: educated or insufficiently governed. And if you want to know
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: that that's people's answer to question number three, all you
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: got to do is think about the answer to number four.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: How is what is wrong made right? More education, more government.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: That's G-U-B-M-I-N-T, government. That's our answer for everything, right? Either
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: that or... That's our answer. That's what gets us to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: our utopia. Okay? So, there it is. Who am I?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Why am I here? What's wrong with the world? How
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: can what is wrong be made right? Those last two
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: questions have a couple of options depending on who you're
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: talking to. One would say we're insufficiently governed You know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the answer is more government and more education, right? Others
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: would have more of a therapeutic model. And basically the way,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: how is what's wrong made right? It's through the pursuit
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of this therapeutic model. There's a problem that you have
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: outside of you, and the answer to the problem is
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: inside of you. Through therapy, you tap into that thing
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: on the inside of you that helps you cope with
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the problems on the outside of you. Again, these ought
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to sound pretty familiar, right? But how? How does biblical
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Christianity answer these questions? How does our metanarrative answer these questions? Well,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: let me give it to you and then we'll look
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: at it in the text. Creation, fall, redemption, consummation. That's
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: our metanarrative. Creation, fall, redemption, consummation. But how do we
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: put it in terms of these four questions? Who am I?
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Why am I here? What is wrong with the world?
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And how can what is wrong be made right? Well, now,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: let's look at our text in Colossians. Let's look there
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: at that paragraph that begins in verse 15. It reads, he,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: speaking of Christ, is the image of the invisible God,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: whether thrones or dominions or rules or authorities, all things
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: were created through him and for him who am I
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: it's interesting that the text starts the answer to that
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: question who am I by telling me who he is
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: because according to the biblical worldview according to the Christian
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: metanarrative you cannot know or understand who you are apart
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: from knowing and understanding who God is Because essentially what
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: separates our worldview is that we don't start with man.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: And that's the issue. The secular human worldview, secular humanism, humanism, human, human.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You get that? We start with man and try to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: answer those questions. That's not the way Christianity answers those questions.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: We start with God. There is a God who created
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the world. He is the image of the invisible God,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: were created in heaven, on earth, visible, invisible, thrones, dominions, rules, authorities.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: All things were created through him and for him. What
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: that means is who I am is created and not
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: just created. If we look at the story of creation
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: in Genesis chapter 1, man is not just created. He
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: is created. Man is the crowning glory of creation. Amen?
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Unlike the rest of creation, because man is made in
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the image of God. I was reading a book today.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I read half to two-thirds of the stuff that I
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: read makes me mad. But I know that it will, right?
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I know that it will. I know that it will beforehand.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And it's just there's a lot of craziness out there.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I want to kind of understand where the craziness is
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: coming from. And in this book today, this gentleman who
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: is trying to do his best to come up with
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: a way forward on the whole climate change issue. Title
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of it, There Is No Planet B. And he lays out, really,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: his worldview at the beginning of the book. And he
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: talks about the inherent dignity and value of every human life.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's awesome, man. But then a little
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: bit later on, he talks about the inherent dignity and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: value of all human things and how his son, when
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: his son learned that a human embryo was about the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: same size of, you know, this small rodent creature at
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a certain point in development, his son asked him about
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the relative value of the human embryo compared to this small,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: rodent creature that is around the same size at a
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: certain point of development, and he admits that he could
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: not answer the question about relative value. And the reason
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: that he could not answer the question is because in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: his worldview, the answer to the question, who am I,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: starts with evolution Evolution. So there is no distinction in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: value for him. Man is not the crowning glory of
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the creation of God for him. And then later on,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: he starts talking about some other things in the book,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and this... This thing just becomes more and more clear
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: because then he's talking about the fact that people are
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: living longer and that we're doing such a good job
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: with medicine and people's lives are becoming longer. And some
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: people believe that the first person to live 200 years
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: has already been born. Just think about that. That's a
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: long life, y'all. And what this means for him because
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of the population that it's going to create is that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: we need to be thinking more critically about when and
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: how we end people's lives. Again, worldview just, it just
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: shows up, right? It just comes. It just comes. And
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it matters. It makes a difference. Our metanarrative says that
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: everyone does have intrinsic and inherent dignity and value and
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: worth because we're made in the image of God. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: that is a completely different starting point than any other worldview.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Why is it, for example, that women in the Christian world,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and it's interesting, you wouldn't know this, you wouldn't know
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this to listen, right? I mean, if you listen, if
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you listen to the noise out there from a lot
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of feminist circles, you would think that women in the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Christian world have it worse than women anywhere else. But
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is that women in Christian
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: cultures are the healthiest, wealthiest, most protected, most prosperous women
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: in the history of mankind. Right? Period. End of discussion.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: It's not even close. There is no other culture in
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the world where women are prized more or protected more
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: than in Christian cultures throughout the history of mankind. Never. Never.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But why? Because this worldview that sees inherent dignity and
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: value And every human being sees no distinction between the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: dignity and value of a female person and a male person.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Does that mean things have always been great? Nope. There's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: an answer. Everybody's been talking a lot about slavery and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: American slavery. You know what's unique about slavery in America?
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Not that it existed because it existed everywhere in the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: world and, by the way, still exists. And by some measurements,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: there's more slaves in the world today than there have
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: ever been. You know what was unique about American slavery?
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: We fought to end it. That's what was unique in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: the history of the world. Not that it existed, because again,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: every period of history, every culture in history had slavery.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Not many of them took up arms to try to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: end it. And why? Because if we believe in the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: inherent dignity and value of of people because they're created
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: by God and in the image of God than whether
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: they're male or female, whether they're Jew or Greek, whether
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: they're slave or free. Ooh, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: It's Galatians 3.28, people. It's Galatians 3.28. And again... Upheld perfectly? No. No,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that's why we continue to yearn and creation continues to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: yearn for Christ to come and deliver us from our brokenness, right?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: But we're going to get there. I don't want to
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: get ahead of myself. That's consummation part, right? But there's
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: an answer. Just think about it. It's teachers. Johnny, don't
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: hit Susie. Johnny, don't take that from Susie. Johnny, don't
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: pull Susie's hair. Johnny, stop it. Why? Because if I'm
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: teaching Johnny that he is the result of random evolutionary processes,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: then the only thing that ought to matter is if
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Susie has something he wants and if he's big and
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: strong enough to take it. On what basis and on
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: what grounds do I tell Johnny That he should treat
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Susie better. Christian theism has an answer. Johnny, Susie's made
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: in the image of God just like you are. She
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: has inherent dignity and worth and value as one who
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: bears the image of almighty God. And there's the way
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that we treat people because they're made in the image
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: of God. See, I can say that to Johnny. The
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: evolutionist can only say that to Johnny if he's inherently dishonest.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Who am I? Crown and glory of the creation of God. Okay,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: so why am I here? Let's keep reading. He is
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the image of the invisible God. Again, talking about Christ.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: The firstborn of all creation. For by him all things
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: were created in heaven and on earth. visible, invisible, with
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the thrones, dominions, rules, authorities, all things were created through
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: him and for him. We read that. And he is
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: before all things, and in him all things hold together.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: He is the head of the body of the church,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the beginning and the firstborn from the dead, that in
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: everything he might be preeminent. Let's finish the paragraph. For
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: on earth, or in heaven, making peace by the blood
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of his cross. Why did I want us to read that?
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: This paragraph, this one and the one after, we're going
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to look at it, is filled with repetition. Verse 15, firstborn.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Verse 17, before all things. Verse 18, head. And then
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: the end of verse 18, beginning and firstborn again, and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: then preeminent. All of that right there in verse 18.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: So we have firstborn before, beginning, firstborn, head, preeminent. Think
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: he's making a point? Verse 15, last phrase, all creation.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Verse 16, by him, all things. And then toward the
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: end of verse 16, all things again. Verse 17, he's
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: before all. All things again. And in him, all things again.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Then in verse 18, in everything. And in verse 20,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: all things. So we got firstborn before, head, firstborn preeminent.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: And then we got all things, all things. All things,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: all things. In everything, all things. Do you think there's
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: a point here? Even earlier at the end of verse 16,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: we saw that all things were created through him and
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: for him. There's repetition there. So there's repetition over and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: over and over and over again. And what's the repetition
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: there for? To answer the second question. Why am I here?
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I'm here for the same reason all things are here,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to bring glory and honor to the one who created me.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: That's why I exist. That's why you exist. That's why
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: everything exists. Not everything. Everything. That's beyond everything, y'all. It
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: all exists to bring him glory. Again, do you not
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: feel him making this point? I just want to read
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it again. Let this just wash over you. He is
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the image of the invisible God. By the way, that's
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: just right there. That's huge. the firstborn of all creation.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: For by him all things were created in heaven and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: on earth, visible, invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: By the way, there's a list. That list is to magnify.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: All things were created through him and for him. He
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: is before all things. In him all things hold together.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: He is the head of the body of the church.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: or heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: All things, all things, all things, everything, all things. In him,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: by him, through him, for him. Firstborn, head, beginning, firstborn, preeminent.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: That's who Christ is. And he has to be because
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: he's the image of the invisible God, which means he's God,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: by the way. Not almost God, not kind of God.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: He's God. Which is why he's before all things. Who
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: am I? Crowning glory to the creation of God. Why
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: am I here? To bring glory and honor to God.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: Not just to consume and enjoy. Not just to eat, drink,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and be merry because tomorrow we all die. To bring
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: glory to my creator. So question number three. What's wrong
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: with the world? Verse 21. And you. You. You can
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: just stop right there. What's wrong with the world? You.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, me too, kind of, but mainly you, right?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: By the way, again, we're going to get repetition. Repetition.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: We're going to get repetition. And it's this pattern of threes, which, again,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: from the standpoint of oratory and rhetoric, is a powerful,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: powerful tool. Listen to what he says. And you who
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: once were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. That's
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: three things, right? He has now reconciled in his body
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: of flesh. By his death in order to present you what? Holy, blameless,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: above reproach before him. If indeed you continue. Did you
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: notice all those threes?
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: That's a rhetorical device. You
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: have the repetition of the paragraph before. Six, seven times
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: he says the same thing over and over again. two
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: different ways in that paragraph. And then right after it,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: right after it, he has this one, two, three, one,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: saying the same thing three different ways over and over
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and over again. And you, what was wrong? What was wrong?
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: He gives us three things to communicate one truth. Again,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: he's building here. And you, who once were alienated, Hostile
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in mind and doing evil deeds. Alienated has to do
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: with our relational and positional problem. Hostile in mind has
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to do with the way that we think. And then
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: engaged in evil deeds has to do with the way
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that we behave. In other words, we were ruined. We
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: were ruined. There's another word for this. It's called sin.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: What is wrong with the world? Sin. We are alienated
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: from God. So alienated from God that we try to
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: explain our own existence apart from God. We're so alienated
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: from God that we would rather believe in the virgin
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: birth of the universe than the virgin birth of Christ.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: Somebody says they believe in the virgin birth of Jesus,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: we say they're unintelligent. Somebody says they believe in the
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: virgin birth of the universe, we say they're brilliant. We're
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: alienated from God. We want to explain ourselves apart from him.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Hostile in mind. Our thinking is darkened, as Paul says
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: in Romans 1. And then we're doing evil deeds, which
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: grow out of this alienation and which grow out of
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: our hostile minds. That's what's wrong. It's not that you're
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: insufficiently educated or It's not. It's not. The world is
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: filled with brilliant evil people. Amen? Man has become far
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: more sophisticated and far more educated. And you know what
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: that does? You know the difference? Here's the difference. We've
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: gone from being able to kill one another one at
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a time face-to-face with a sword to being able to
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: push buttons and kill one another by the thousands. But
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: we're still killing each other. Just in more sophisticated and
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: educated ways. We still steal from each other. It's just
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: that now, instead of trying to figure out how to
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: get close enough to put a hand in your pocket,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: people just got to figure out what the codes are. Educated, sophisticated.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Our problem is not that we're insufficiently educated. Our problem
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: is not that we're insufficiently governed. Because here's my question,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: who's governing the governors? Amen? Our problem is sin. Or
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: to put it another way, who am I? I'm the
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: crowning glory of creation of God. Why am I here?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: to bring glory and honor to the God who created me.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: What's wrong with the world? I don't. I live for me,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and I live to satisfy me. Again, back to that paragraph.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: All creation, all things, all things, all things, all things,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: and everything, all things, firstborn, before, head, firstborn, preeminent, over
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: and over and over again, making much of Christ, saying
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: that's who you are and that's why you're here. And then...
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: But you don't do that. You're broken. You're broken. And
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: unlike the therapeutic model, your problem is not on the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: outside of you waiting for the solution from the inside
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: of you. No, no, no. Our worldview says your problem
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: is on the inside of you and the solution is
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: on the outside of you. How can what is wrong
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: be made right? There's the question. Look at verse 21 again.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: And you, once were alienated, hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: his death in order to present you. There was three
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: things wrong with us, right? Alienated, hostile in mind, doing
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: evil deeds. in order to present you holy, blameless, above reproach.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: What's the answer? The answer is the cross. As Isaiah says,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: all we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: had turned to his own way. but God has laid
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: upon him the iniquity of us all. That's the answer.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: That's the answer. God made him who knew no sin
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to be sin for us so that we might become
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: the righteousness of God in him. Christ died for sin
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: once for all, the just for the unjust, in order
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: that he might bring us back to God. God demonstrated
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: his love for you in this, in that while we
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That's the answer.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: That's the answer. That's the answer. Christ's death on the cross.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: But I want you to get this. I want you
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: to understand this. You were alienated. You were hostile in mind.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: You were doing evil deeds. And then he reconciled you
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: in his body of flesh. We start with verse 15.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: He is the image of the invisible God. And now
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: in verse 22, in his body of flesh and by
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: his death, the very one who's the image of the
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: invisible God takes on a body of flesh and dies.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: The very one who's the image of the invisible God
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: because here we are under the federal headship of the
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: first Adam and we're guilty before God because the first
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Adam is our federal head and he falls and we
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: fall in him. He sins and we sin in him.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: We are born in sin, shaped in iniquity because we
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: are under the federal headship of the first Adam. You
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: understand federal headship. Don't tell me you don't. Don't tell
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: me you don't. December 7th, 1941 A day which will
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: live in infamy. What happened? What happened the next day?
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: What happened the next day was Congress declared war. Here's
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: what Congress didn't do. Congress didn't get together and say, okay,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: we're going to sign this and send this to Japan,
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: and it's going to say that all of us who
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: have signed here challenge you to a fight. No. Our
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: federal head signed a document saying, that declared war on
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: behalf of all of those under their federal headship. It
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: didn't matter if we agreed or not. Once our federal
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: heads declared war, all of us were at war. Because
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: that's how federal headship works. We have a flag. Amen?
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: We have a flag. Nobody asked you. Right? Right? You
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: don't get to say, you know, I think it would
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: be pretty if we put a little purple right there. No,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: you don't get to do that. Because your federal head
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: determined what your federal emblem would be. Are you following me?
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: That's federal headship. And Adam is our federal head. And
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Adam fell. Adam sinned. And all of us, because our
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: federal head essentially declared war with God, fell into sin
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: under Adam. And we needed another federal head. But there's
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a problem. Our federal head had to be a man,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: but man is born into sin because man is born
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: under Adam. How do we have a federal head who's
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: a man who can represent us before God like Adam
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: represented us before God if every man is born in sin?
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: The answer to that is in the fullness of time,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: under the law, but not born of a man. Born
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: of a woman by the Holy Spirit. Don't you ever
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: let anybody tell you that the virgin birth doesn't matter.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Because that's why Christ is the God-man. He is the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: image of the invisible God, but takes on flesh and
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: becomes a man so that he can be our representative.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't take on Adam's sin, otherwise he'd have
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: his own sin to die for and could not atone
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: for yours. And as a man, he lives a perfect
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: sinless life so that he can impute righteousness to all
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: of those who place faith in him and then he
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: dies a vicarious substitutionary death so that God may be
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: just in punishing sin and the justifier of all who
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: place faith in Jesus. And how do we know that
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that is acceptable because he's called the firstborn from the dead.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Watch this. If I introduce a child of mine to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: you or you introduce a child of yours to me
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: and you say this is our firstborn, guess what I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: automatically know? You have other children. Because you're only the
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: firstborn if something comes after you. Huh? He's the firstborn
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: from the dead. Why? Because those who are under his
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: federal headship will overcome death, hell, and the grave just
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: like he did. How can what is wrong be made right?
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Through the blood of his cross, he reconciles us in
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: his body of flesh by his death in order to
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: present us holy, blameless, and above reproach. That's the answer.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Every other religion in the world can basically be summed
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: up with this. You need to have some kind of
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: religious experience. And they'll define that differently. But essentially, you
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: need to have some kind of religious experience. Go through
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: some religious rite. And then after that, do more good
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: stuff than bad stuff and hope for the best when
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: you die. That's what I believed when I first heard
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the gospel. I never heard the gospel until I got
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to the universities. I didn't grow up around Christians. I
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: didn't grow up around Christianity. I was raised by a
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: single teenage Buddhist mother. Buddhism was the only religion I knew.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't know about Christianity until it shared with me
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: in college. And essentially, I had this same idea. You
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: need to have some kind of religious experience. They need
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: to do more good stuff than bad stuff. Hope for
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the best when you die. God comes, shares the gospel
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: with me. I don't really get what he's talking about
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: because I don't, I mean, worldview-wise, I'm a world apart.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: We spent three weeks together talking about this stuff and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden two things came crashing down on me.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Number one, I can't be good. Amen, somebody. I can't
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: be good, y'all. I tried it. I can't do it.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And then even when I am doing good at being good,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: then I get proud of the fact that I'm being
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: good and the pride is not good. I got to
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: start all over again. Second problem that came crashing down
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: in on me, what about the stuff I did before
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: my religious experience? I mean, I have this religious experience.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I go through this religious rite, and then for the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: rest of my life, I'm trying to be good enough
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: so that I have more on the right side of
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: the scale. I can't even do that, let alone the
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: stuff before. How do I deal with that? Christ died
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: for sin once for all. The blood of Jesus is sufficient.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: There's no other answer anywhere else in the world. Who
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: am I? The crowning glory of the creation of God.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Why am I here? I'm here to bring glory and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: honor to God. What is wrong with the world? Me. Me.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: I don't do what I was created to do. I
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: don't glorify the God who I was created to glorify. Instead,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: I live for me, myself, and I. I'm alienated from God.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I'm hostile in mind. I'm engaged in evil deeds. That's
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: what's wrong. How can what is wrong be made right?
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Through the penal, substitutionary, atoning death of Jesus Christ. On
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: my behalf. That's my only hope. That's your only hope.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: That's your only sufficient answer. That's it. And so we've
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: got a world full of people who just, they're trying
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: to be good enough or governed enough or educated enough
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: to deal with their sin problem, and it just digs
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: a deeper hole. You're more alienated from God. So now
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: I'm alienated from God, and then when I think about
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: the problems in my world, my answer is something other
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: than God. It further alienates me from God. Or a
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: therapeutic answer. Problems out there, answers in here. Again, alienated
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: from God. He provides the answer through the person and
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: work of Christ. Remember I told you these four pieces. Creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: God created the world. Man fell in Adam. Man is
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: redeemed in Christ. And we anxiously await the consummation of
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: all things. At his return. That's the right narrative. I
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: don't know what you believe about God, man, truth, knowledge, ethics.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you've come to believe about the
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: overarching story that explains who we are and why we're here.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: But if it's anything other than creation, fall, redemption, consummation.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: If anything other than who am I, crowning glory to
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the creation of God, why am I here to bring
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: glory and honor to God? What is wrong with the world,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: me and my sin? How can it be made right?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Through the blood of Christ. If that's not your answer,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: then you have no hope. And you and I both
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: know that if that's not your answer, whatever is your answer,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: It's insufficient. Flee to Christ. Flee to Christ. Cling to
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the cross. For it is indeed and he is indeed
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: your only hope. Let's pray. Gracious God, our heavenly father,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: how we thank you and praise you. for your goodness
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: and kindness and mercy toward us. That goodness and kindness
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: and mercy that we see in the person and work
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: of Christ. Thank you for granting us an opportunity tonight
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: to make much of him. Grant by your grace that
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: we might be found in him. For he is indeed
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: our only hope. And we ask this in his name
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: and for his sake. Amen.