Why we need to be saved
Bible passage: Genesis 2:15-3:6
What’s wrong
with the world. Newspaper letters column ran a correspondence
– different ideas, GK Chesterton – shortest letters
– Dear Editor. I am. Yours sincerely GK Chesterton.
State of the
world tells us there is a problem. Not that people have
a problem but that people are the problem. Teachers
often say school would be a great place if it wasn’t
for the pupils – true to say the world would be great
place if it weren’t for the people. Just as school exists
for the pupils, so the world exists for humanity. The
problem in the world is the people in the world.
One of the great questions of all time is
what is life all about. To put it another way, what
are people for? What is our purpose?
? made for
pleasure – eat, drink and be merry – life is short live
it to the full – hedonist
? made to work – our
value is what we can contribute economically to society
– communist and capitalist
? Part of a universal
being – a greater whole – New age philosophies, green
thinking, Hinduism
? Live at the whim of the will
of an arbitrary god, might lead us into good or into
bad, just happens – Muslims and those who trust in fate
or astrology
? Not for anything – just a product
of evolutionary chance "a machine made out of meat".
Negative – existentialist. Positive about it – humanist
The Bible
has a different answer. Bible says we are created to
be in relationship with the creator. What we are for
is to glorify God.
Bible starts
by saying there is God and he made us for a purpose.
Gen 1:26 – let us make man. Not an accident – made
on purpose, born out of love.
Gen 1:26-27 – made
in God’s image – able to be creative, to appreciate
beauty and God’s moral and spiritual qualities.
Gen 2;7 – God breathed life into people making us body
and soul.
The first chapters of the Bible
also tell us how we glorify God: three different aspects
mentioned here:
1. In our work
God
made people to work. Adam and Eve didn’t sit around
all day having picnics. Work was part of a God’s original
plan for humanity, not a result of the fall. See 1:28
– work of looking after the earth, making it useful
and beautiful.
Work is meant to be both necessary
and pleasurable. Meant to be creative and used to develop
people’s skills. Not meant to be a drudgery, or to exhaust
us.
2. In our rest
God made us with
a pattern of work and rest. We are not just labourers,
we are made to have time to have rest and leisure. God
made the world with six days work and one day rest –
pattern for all creation and all humanity.
3. In our relationships
Part of creation
story that God made us male and female. No one person
has the fullness of being human, but together we are
complete. Togetherness can be expressed in friendships,
in family relationships, in groups like church, in society
as a whole. Expressed most of all in marriage.
God
made men and women to be different but equal, and relationships
between men and women show the way God made us complementary
to one another.
Three ways we express the glory
of God. All three are not meant to be ends in themselves.
Work shouldn’t enslave us, rest is not just for our
own selfish pleasure. Relationships are for others,
not just to gratify ourselves. We were made to reflect
the glory of God and give glory to God, not to grab
it for ourselves.
The main
way to glorify God is to obey him – the heart of our
subject to today is how we glorify God in obedience
or glorify ourselves in disobedience.
Two trees
next to each other in the garden. One gave life, the
other brought death through disobedience. God told Adam
and Eve that there was one tree they mustn’t eat from
– tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
That tree
caused Adam and Eve to decide whether to live for God’s
glory or their own glory. Eating the fruit in itself
wasn’t the problem – not a poisoned fruit. The only
reason it was wrong was because God said it was wrong.
But Adam and Eve did eat the fruit and chose to live
for themselves, not for God. Eve took the fruit and
ate it and gave it to Adam who also ate it. In that
action they refused to reflect God’s glory and chose
to grab hold of glory for themselves.
"The
heart of the problem is the problem of the heart"
– we as human beings seek to live for our own glory
and not for God’s. We want to become God rather than
worshipping God.
Sin is the desire to live for self
rather than for God – that’s why we need to be saved.
Three quick lessons to learn:
1. We should
remember our purpose – the meaning of life. Ewe
are made by God’s power, in God’s image, for God’s glory.
We are made to glorify God in our work, our play, our
relationships and everything else do.
2. We should
grieve for what we have lost. The story of the
first sin is a disaster story, one we can learn from.
Sin continues to bring misery and suffering into the
world. Sin still spoils the world and all that is in
it.
3. Knowing the problem is half way to
knowing the answer. Our problem is with sin. But when
people realise their condition they can ask the question
that the people of Jerusalem asked Peter on the day
of Pentecost "What must we do to be saved?"
Over this series we’ll be looking at the answer. The
basic answer is there’s nothing we can do, but God has
acted in Jesus to save all who turn to him in faith.
That’s on offer now – but in our series is still to
come.
