Hollering For Liberty

A couple weeks ago, Christina had me thinking about new age spiritualism due to an Oprah club book she bought. And we were talking about how spiritualism was an attempt by the humanists to fill that spiritual void for peace and purpose that we all have.

Then lately I’ve been thinking a lot about secular humanism, evolution and intelligent design. It all started one day when I heard a conservative talk radio host talking about how secular humanism was becoming the state religion (rather than taking a neutral position it is ousting religion). Then there was a comment about Paul not believing in evolution on a previous blog, and so that got me thinking more. That same day I went to lunch and my mom, out of nowhere, starts talking about this movie Expelled that she went to see the night before, which is about how Darwinism is enforced through coercion.

Today, I was thinking about the role of Christ as redeemer due a post on Joel Larison’s blog.

So I’m thinking about this (Christ’s role) on my way out to my car…and I’m thinking about Joel’s response, which I have to quote real quick…

Believers for centuries have attempted to put all their intellect into figuring God out, and i think the deeper I dig into theology, its not putting God in a box, its discovering more and more his infiniteness and indescribability (sp?)….and that is worship for me
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right now i believe that God sent Jesus because it was the most glorious and beautiful way that redemption could be played out

I get in my car, and get out my iPod and I’m thinking I’d like a little Ravi Zacharias for my drive home. Ravi’s sermon starts out talking about Stephen Hawking and continues on about evolution. And I’m sitting there thinking, “Wow, it is so weird how God keeps bombarding me with this secular humanism and Christianity stuff.” So then my mind starts to drift off thinking about how amazing it is that God continues to pull together information from different sources and throw them in my lap.

Then, Ravi starts going off about how Christ came to give us a glimpse of the glory and character of God (I’m seriously paraphrasing) and to help define our purpose. He said that Christ demonstrated two principles — sonship (how to relate to a Holy Father) and worship. Then Ravi brought it all together and blew me away with the following words, which I will quote at some length.

As we look at the difference between the secular world and the Christian world, here’s what I concluded one day. In the secular world they give you tiny little meanings with no ultimate meaning. They give you tiny little purposes with no ultimate purpose. And so they have no skin for life; they just have this fragmentary way going about it, finding momentary meaning and momentary purposes with no ultimate meaning and no ultimate purpose.

But this is so drastically different to what the Christian message is all about. A contemporary writer has said this, “Without worship we shrink, and that is the brutal truth.” I want you to hear this now. The new age movement is little more than the valiant attempt of secularism to mitigate its bankruptcy with the spurious glitter of Eastern mysticism.
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Worship is coextensive with life. The culmination of it that you bring on the Lord’s day in corporate worship is after all not 400 non-worshipers coming so they can worship. You really don’t come to the sanctuary; you bring the sanctuary with you. Worship is coextensive with life!

Beautiful stuff.

Check out Ravi’s sermon, entitled “Invested Dignity, Reflective Glory” (Part 1 & 2)