Word of Salvation – August 2018
B.C.17 – Religion: God’s Sarch For Man
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Reading: Genesis 3 & Ephesians 2:1-10
Text: Genesis 3:9
Introd: Some people say that religion is the story of MAN’S SEARCH FOR GOD.
Many anthropologists and psychologists see religion in those terms.
Human beings, they say, have always been and always will be religious.
That’s why religion is found among people from every tribe and nation.
That’s why there has always been religion throughout the ages.
Mankind always looks for higher ideals… and for better things.
And religion… or God… is the shape we give to those higher goals and ideals.
Some even explain DIFFERENCES among religions on that basis.
Differences are there because different people seek God in different ways.
People are different… and there are different cultural factors.
So we can expect differences among the various world religions.
Of course you can also explain SIMILARITIES on that basis.
We are all human… and we all have basically the same hopes and dreams.
We all struggle with similar problems, worries and needs.
So we also expect to find similarities among the religions of the world.
Others have suggested that human beings search for God
because they have a “God-shaped vacuum” within them.
Everyone, in their own way, searches for God to fill that empty place in their lives.
So whichever way you look at it religion is man’s search for God!
A] GOD’S INITIATIVE VS MAN’S FLIGHT.
1. From the Bible’s viewpoint that explanation of religion is totally indefensible.
Scripture has a radically different outlook on humanity and religion.
Paul puts it this way in Romans 3:11: “There is no one who seeks after God!”
Paul is quoting from Ps.53.
And he totally contradicts the idea that religion is man’s search for God.
Already in the Genesis 3 story of Eden we find a dramatically different picture.
It shows us two human beings who deliberately rebel against their Maker.
The man and the woman wilfully disobey and a turn their back on God.
They are definitely NOT seeking God… instead they are FLEEING from God.
Genesis give us a snapshot of a man and a woman, naked and ashamed… hiding in the scrub.
That’s hardly a picture of people searching for the God whom they have lost.
Rather it is the common Biblical imagery of “MAN ON THE RUN FROM GOD”.
It’s true of course that in a certain sense there is a “God-shaped” space in each of us.
At least that’s one possible way of saying that we were made BY God FOR God.
And we were made LIKE God… in His image!
Yet if Genesis 3 and the rest of Scripture show us anything at all
then it is that humanity is not particularly anxious to have God fill that space.
Genesis 3 has some powerful images… and then not only of Adam and Eve hiding themselves.
But when they are confronted by God there is no embracing Him as repentant sinners.
I don’t read of any humble confession… or of any pleading for forgiveness.
Instead there is an attempt to BLUFF IT OUT with God and to avoid the issue.
Look how Adam and Eve deal with their alienation from God.
They speak only of their fear and nakedness… there is not a word about their disobedience.
From vs.12 onward we even find them trying to shift the blame away from themselves.
Adam says: “It’s not really my fault… the woman made me do it.”
Eve says: “It wasn’t really my fault – the serpent made me do it.”
Indirectly they are even blaming God for their problems.
Adam assumes it is because God had given him the woman.
“The woman YOU put here with me…”
And Eve at least hints that if God hadn’t made the serpent it wouldn’t have happened.
Put all this together and we have to say that it is a LIE that man searches for God.
Man is not inclined to seek after God at all.
By nature he avoids God… he flees from Him.
Human beings hide in their lostness… and he even blame God for their problems.
We know that from other parts of the Bible too.
Consider, for example, the history of Israel…. with their constant grumbling and apostasy.
Here was a nation that tended – constantly – to abandon God.
Or consider the story of the prophet Jonah… running away from God.
Religion IS NOT the story of man’s search for God.
Instead it is the story of man setting up his false religions…
so that in his idolatry he might avoid the Creator of heaven and earth.
I think we know that from daily experience too, don’t we?
If men and women searched for God it would be easier to speak to them about the Lord Jesus Christ.
If human beings were that way inclined then the churches would be filled to overflowing.
We wouldn’t be able to keep people away.
If people were searching for God then your friends would be anxious to know more about God.
More of our own uncommitted people would be queuing up for involvement.
Young people banging on the door of the Session room to make their profession of faith.
It just is not true that humanity naturally tends to search for God.
Okay… some people do recognise the emptiness of their materialistic existence.
But they will fill that emptiness in countless wrong ways just to avoid dealing with the true God.
2. Genesis 3 actually puts it the other way round: Not man searching for God but God searching for man.
It’s a beautiful picture that is presented in verse 9.
Look again at those words of God to Adam and Eve: “WHERE ARE YOU?”
There you have the essence of Biblical religion.
That’s where all evangelism and outreach begins.
It is not so that humanity tries to solve its problems by seeking God.
It’s rather a matter of God dealing with our problems by seeking us out. Where are you?
So tonight we see yet once again what a number of previous B.C. articles have shown us…
The awful reality that our only hope and possibility… is for God to take the initiative.
We cannot even search for Him until He searches for us.
It is in this context that the Christian Church speaks of GRACE.
That is a biblical/theological term that is at the heart of Genesis 3… GRACE.
Today GRACE is a concept that is not generally understood by people around us.
Mention “grace” in your office or factory and the non-Christians
will think you’re talking about the blue-eyed blond at the receptionist desk.
When Christians talk about GRACE, they mean God’s favourable attitude to undeserving people.
Grace is “UNDESERVED FAVOUR”. That favour that enables God to be merciful.
And when we Christians talk about GRACE we are really talking about God taking the initiative.
That God did that even though He didn’t have to do it.
The totally undeserved favour of a God whom we have deeply offended…!
Do you see that there in Genesis 3?
God takes the initiative and seeks out Adam and Eve to restores them to favour.
He would have been perfectly just in obliterating them from His universe but He doesn’t.
Because the B.C. also wants to emphasise grace it talks yet again of our lostness and deadness.
It dealt with that already in article 15 on ORIGINAL SIN.
And even before that in article 14 on THE FALL OF MAN we saw our sad problem.
And now it focuses yet once more on our lost condition.
But it does that NOT so that we might grovel a little more…
so that we might feel a little better by cringing in our misery and wretchedness.
but it takes us there again so as to highlight the GRACE OF GOD.
There is this totally undeserving nature of God’s response to humanity’s sin.
That is something that Scripture does repeatedly.
It constantly highlights the seriousness of our problem.
But it does that so that God’s grace can be seen in all its glory.
Think again of how Ephesians 2 begins: “…dead in transgressions and sin..!”
But it says that in order to emphasis this other truth: “By GRACE you have been saved…!”
I’ve said it before in connection with previous studies from the B.C…. but I’ll say it again:
If we minimise the seriousness of our problem… our natural lostness…
then we at the same time play down the graciousness of God.
God would be perfectly justified in ignoring us totally and letting us rot in hell.
He would be totally just not to search us out but to leave us to our eternal doom.
So Genesis 3 is the story of what we call THE FALL – the fall of the human race.
But it is also – especially – the story of the gracious dealings of our God.
And you and I really only come to know that graciousness of our God…
when we also know ourselves to be lost and dirty sinners before God.
And if you’ve never really felt bad about your sin
then you won’t feel all that excited about God’s grace either.
In fact, if we humans are still able and willing to search for God…
then God’s gracious initiative is suddenly not so important anymore.
Here it’s interesting to notice the order of our Belgic Confession.
This article on God taking the initiative with us comes right after the article on election.
I believe that it is arranged that way for two reasons:
First: to make quite clear that God choosing us was a matter of grace.
God didn’t choose us on the basis of knowing beforehand who of us would search for Him.
No! It’s the other way around.
We are not at all inclined by nature to search for God.
But we can rejoice that God in love searches out
all those whom He in His sovereign plan has chosen for life.
That brings us to a second reason why this comes after the article on election.
To show that what God has planned in eternity He carries out in time.
Those God chose in Christ before creation He now also searches out to save and restore.
B] GOD’S COMFORT VS MAN’S MISERY.
1. There is one other theme in this article that we need to look at.
Our Belg. Conf. speaks here about MISERY: Man has made himself wholly miserable.
When we read Genesis 3 we certainly become very conscious of the misery.
In fact, there is a heap of misery in this chapter.
There is that misery of two people quivering in fear among the bushes.
There’s the misery that there is now a barrier between them and God.
And there is misery because there is now also a barrier between themselves.
But the misery goes much further… there is also all that misery that followed down through the ages.
Banished from God’s wonderful paradise garden with no hope of return.
There’s the punishment and sadness of birth pains:
The misery of the thorns and thistles… the things that make work unpleasant.
And still today – can’t we see the misery in every human being on the run from God?
Human beings are not particularly happy creatures.
Life on planet earth has never really been a hundred laughs a minute.
Well, okay, it’s true that there IS a lot of fun and laughter at times.
And we as Christians certainly know all about the “joy unspeakable”.
But I am talking tonight – NOT about occasional moments of joy, NOR about Christian people.
Not about those whom God has searched out and filled with the gospel of Christ.
I’m talking about people “on the run from God”.
They try to fill the emptiness of their lives with a lot of fun and laughter.
But somehow it never goes much deeper than the surface.
It’s a happiness that is gone when the hangover starts.
It’s a happiness that has to be propped up with wild weekends and drugs.
Today we have institutions full of people who have tried all that. “Been there… done that!”
But they know deep down, from bitter experience in their own lives…
that in the fall, Adam and Eve not only made themselves… but all humanity miserable.
And it has been like that ever since Genesis 3.
I’d love to ask those who have dropped out of our Churches and who are still “on the run from God”….
or our young people who are putting off their commitment to Him…
How happy are you really?
Is there real peace… and joy… and contentment in your life?
Some might be inclined to say: “OK things are not right and I know what you’re talking about.”
“But I get by! Life is still bearable!”
That’s perhaps true! But there is yet one other kind of misery in Genesis 3.
And that is the bit that reads: “You are dust… and to dust you shall return.”
In Genesis 3 death suddenly becomes an awful reality on planet earth;
Not only a spiritual death that made them flee from God…. but also physical death.
In that instant in which they sinned the process of decay began in the cells of their bodies:
An irreversible process that led them irrevocably to the grave.
People with all their escape mechanisms can close their eyes to a lot of misery.
But they cannot avoid the misery of death.
There is always that unescapable misery that we are mortal.
We grow old and die… and everyone of us has to come to grips with our own mortality.
Man on the run from God has no solution to that.
One of his greatest miseries is that one day death will end it all. And beyond that ?
Well, there is the horrible possibility of what Christians call “hell”.
A successful but unbelieving businessman was talking about his plans for the future to a Christian.
The Christian asked: And what are you going to do then. He replied: Then I’ll retire.
Again the Christian asked: And what then? He replied: Well I guess I’ll grow old and die.
Once more the Christian asked: And what then? That question led to his conversion.
2. Our Confession of faith has a reason for spelling out our misery.
And then not only because that misery is there in Genesis 3.
Painful childbirth, thorns and thistles, dust to dust.
It mentions these things to remind us that God takes the initiative with us for a purpose.
God comes to search us out in order to comfort us and to relieve us of our misery.
Of course in Genesis 3 the Lord also comes to spell out the punishment.
That’s a fact… and you can’t get away from that fact.
But God goes much further than just punishing Adam and Eve.
God’s graciousness overrules wonderfully in this chapter…!
Just think of all the positive things the Lord does in Eden.
God clothes them…. He offers them hope and encouragement.
In fact – the grace actually comes wrapped up in the punishment.
Pain in childbirth? Yes!
But doesn’t that imply the blessing that God will give new life?
Working for one’s bread in the sweat of one’s face? For sure!
But doesn’t that imply that God will also provide the bread.
Grace… wrapped up in the punishment.
God does not destroy them then and there, instead He is profoundly gracious.
And the greatest evidence of that grace is the promise of verse 15.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”
On the surface that’s just a prediction about snakes and people not getting along too well.
But we know that in those words lies the answer to our deepest misery;
The answer to our lostness…. to our spiritual and physical death.
The offspring of the woman (the ‘seed’ of the woman) is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And He by His death and resurrection crushed the head of the serpent who is satan.
Jesus conquered sin and satan and death.
He blessed us with salvation and now gives us a share in the resurrection from the dead.
This makes us realise the extent of God’s grace – how far God was willing to go to search for us.
He came here on earth in the person of Jesus to seek for what was lost.
God’s initiative with us included a cross and a grave for His own beloved Son.
Jesus entered into our misery to search out those whom the Father had chosen in Him.
Conclusion:
Please don’t be under any illusions. We human beings are not inclined to search for God.
Instead we prefer to make our own gods. John Calvin said: the human heart is a factory of idols.
We only begin to search for the true God when He in grace takes the initiative with us…
When He searches us out thru the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But then you must also allow yourself to be found by Him.
Today God is still asking: “Where are you?” He is taking the initiative.
But He’s also asking for your response. Amen.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.