You may know people who struggle to find a sense of purpose in life. Maybe that's you.
Well, not only does the Bible have the explanation for this widespread predicament, but it offers the solution to the problem as well. That's what Alastair Begg is addressing today on Truth for Life. Paul, who wrote in Colossians chapter one. And in verse twenty one, once You were alienated from God. and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior, But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body.
Through death. to present you holy in his sight. Without blemish and free from accusation, if you continue in your faith. established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the Gospel. This is the gospel that you heard.
and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. and of which I, Paul, have become My servant. Amen. prayer. We stand Lord, on the shoulders of those who when the battle raged, uh were brave enough to take on the fight and this morning we thank you.
for the heritage that is ours, both ancient and modern. And we pray that as we think on the things of your word now. That you will conduct that divine dialogue whereby the Spirit of God engages with us in a way that actually. transcends our ability to fully comprehend. that you would deign to use the voice of a mere man in the development and progress of the faith of others.
But it is because of this that we cry out to you for your help. and pray that you will give us grace both to speak and to listen. in a way that brings honor and glory to you. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
I'm not sure that many of you will follow the work of a columnist by the name of Henry Allen. But last year in the uh Wall Street Journal. He wrote a piece that was entitled The disquiet of Ziggy Zeitgeist. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it intrigued me. But even more so, his opening sentence.
And this is what he wrote. For the first time, In my 72 years, I have no idea. What's going on? And he then goes on to tell us That he has made his career as a columnist about being able to make a comment. on the nature of culture and the development of history and so on.
But at this point now in his life, he says the deconstruction of history and of language has left him fairly clueless. And he makes these kind of semi-humorous observations. He says we have individualism, but we have no privacy. We're all outsiders with no inside to be outside of. I don't know what's going on.
I doubt that anyone does. There seems to be no arc. No through line, no destiny. As the British soldiers sang in the trenches of World War I to the tune of Auldlang Syn. We're here because we're here, because we're here.
Because we're here. I worry that reality itself is fading like the Cheshire Cat. Leaving behind only a smile that grows ever more alarming. What a strange time it is to be alive in America. It can't stay this way, can it?
Or can it? He's not alone. in an introduction to a book. A German fellow writes, As follows. How the world in which we live, he says, is a world that has lost its story.
A world in which the progress promised by the humanisms of the past three centuries. is now gravely threatened by by understandings of the human person. that reduce our humanity to a conjuries of chemical cosmic accidents. A humanity with no intentional origin. No noble destiny.
and thus no path to take. through history. Gauguin. who died in his fifties. As a result of his profligate lifestyle, In his most famous canvas as a post-impressionist painter, a canvas that you'll find in the Boston Museum of Fine Art.
He wrote on the canvas.
Something that he didn't do ordinarily apart from the signing of his name. And he wrote three questions that are up on the left-hand corner as you look at it. Yeah. Du Venon Neu. Qu'est somme nu.
Oo a long du. Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?
Now, the fascinating thing and the wonderful thing about the kind of context in which you find yourselves this morning as students is this. that God's word God's Word. must interpret history and culture. and not the other way. around.
We read our newspapers, we watch the news in light of the unerring, in unerrant truth, inerrant truth of the Word of God. And I want this morning, if I may, in the time that falls to me, to give you what I'm referring to as an art lesson. A lesson in art. Don't be alarmed by this, it's just three words, and they make up the word art.
So that's to try and fasten it in your mind, and also to help me remember my notes. The first word is the word alienation. Why is it? Why is it that Alan doesn't know what's going on? Why is it that Gauguin speaks for so many?
When he says, I don't understand my origin, and I have no explanation for my destiny, and I don't really know what I am. Why is it that many young people of the same age as yourselves believe? If they're really going to believe what they've been told, that they're just really a cosmic chemical accident, that they're a bunch of molecules held in suspension for a little while. And what is it that the Christian is able to say concerning the reason for all those kinds of questions?
Well, the answer is in the opening sentence of verse twenty one of Colossians chapter two, where Paul is describing the preconverted condition of the believers in Colossi. And he says, this is what you once wear. You were alienated from From God. And you were enemies of God in your minds. And you were so because of your evil behaviour.
So here then is this picture. Alienated, hostility towards God, evil deeds which speak to that fact. And this is not unique to Paul in Colossians, but runs throughout his letters. In Ephesians he says the same thing. In Ephesians 2, he describes the Christians in Ephesus as having been separated from God, alienated, being without hope and without God in the world.
aliens and strangers, he says.
Now, when the Bible speaks to this and describes it in this way, we ought then ought to be able to look around us and see the evidences of that alienation. It's not difficult to find in contemporary music and in art, and indeed in the sciences. The evidences of the fact that things are broken. that they need to be fixed. that somehow or another they are dreadfully in need of repair.
And again, many of your peers Will, when they are filling out the pre-anesthetic questionnaire, which you get before you have an anesthetic, and they ask you, amongst other things, do you know who you are, and so on, and what's your date of birth? And then they ask you, what is your quotes, religion of choice? At this point in history, one out of three young people under the age of 30 answers none. None. That is not non-N UN.
Especially not on Reformation Weekend. It is none N-O-N-E. I don't have any. Young people who are so secular, they don't even know how secular they are. For whom the word sin just makes no sense at all, because it demands a theological construct which itself makes no sense at all.
For them, guilt is an unnecessary emotion. And truth is a strange idea. And at the heart of it all is not simply naivety, But as the Bible says, hostility. And not simply a hostility that is born of intellectual perception, but a hostility at the level of morality, or if you like, at the level of immorality. Which is why you will hear people saying, nobody is going to tell me.
How to define my gender. Nobody is going to tell me what I'm supposed to do with my body. And so, at the level of our world this morning, and we read our Bibles, and the Bible says the nature of man outside of Christ is alienated from God, without hope, and without God in the world. Then that helps us to understand why things are they are. as they are.
On the macro level, as nations war against nations, And on the micro level, When people in the angst of their own lives, and not least of all, a student generation such as your own. Will speak to the issue of all kinds of alienation. I feel alienated from my parents, I feel alienated from my peers, I feel psychologically alienated from myself, perhaps. Why?
Well, all those alienations are on account of this great alienation. that man by nature is alienated from from God. And the ultimate explanation for it is that our foolish hearts are darkened. and that we have chosen to worship created things rather than the Creator. And it is revealed symptomatically at the moment, nowhere more so than in the issues of sexuality.
I don't have to go and look for this. I just read the paper every morning. Yesterday morning in The Wall Street, there were two issues that struck me in relationship to this. I wonder, did you see them? One was an article on the way in which young people have decided that they don't want to call their mom and dad mom and dad anymore, they just want to call them Joe or Mary.
And the article said, you know, is this a significant thing? And various wise people have pontificated on it, and so forth. At one level you say is a fairly casual thing, but at a fundamental level it is a vital thing because it undermines the very notion of the structure of family itself. At a fundamental level, particularly in the realm of sexuality, our cr our culture crumbles because of alienation from God. Do you know that when you read the historians, they will tell you that this is the case?
When the core structure of society, namely the family, is dismantled. And when sexual Incontinence. of all and every kind. breaks out through the bonds Of Heterosexual Marital monogamy Then it is only a matter of time before that culture will eventually collapse.
Some of you do history, and you can verify this simply by reading. The historian J.D. Unwin studied 86 different societies spanning 5,000 years. And he found what for him was an unexpected and direct correlation. between sexual continence And the ability of a society to grow and remain healthy.
This is what he observed. In human records, there is no instance of a society retaining its energy. after a complete new generation has inherited a tradition which does not insist on pre-nuptial and post-nuptial continents. Of the twenty-two civilizations that have appeared in history, Nineteen of them collapsed. when they reached the moral state The United States is in Right now.
So it's no surprise. to discover that the poets, as I say, And it's no purpose for me to uh talk about science because I know very little about it. I don't know a great deal about poetry either, but I do I do listen and and uh and make notes of things. And as I was thinking this morning, as I was preparing to come here, I suddenly thought of an Annie Lennox song. that I that I remembered.
It goes back to 2003. Annie Lennox is an old Scottish lady, for those of you who are younger, and she's like a grandmother now. But she sang a song that begins, Oh God. Where are you now? And what are you going to do about the mess I've made?
If there was ever a soul to save, it must be me. Dear God, how can I survive? Will I make this drop, this dive, when it all comes to this? I'm looking down at the abyss. Where you don't exist.
You don't exist. But the God who doesn't exist she cries out to in the hope that somewhere Out there. There might be an answer.
Well of course the human assumption Is that we can look for God in Creation Contemporary spiritualities are largely pantheistic. Radical environmentalism, Kabbalah, Hinduism, all the things that are now embraced in our culture. Suggest consistently that if you're looking for God, you can find Him inside of yourself. David Wells aptly observes. God is outside the range of our intuitive radar.
We cannot access him. on our own time. or in our own terms. It is He who must cross the boundary If we are to know him. And cross the boundary he has in the person of Jesus Which brings me to my second word.
which you will be not surprised by, is reconciliation. Because the only need for reconciliation is on account of our alienation. And what Paul says here to the Colossians. Once you were alienated from God, but now He has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in His sight through Christ's literal physical body. It's the same thing that He says masterfully when He writes in 2 Corinthians 5, isn't it?
Uh when he says the the the very same thing. After he's given instruction concerning death for the Christian and the putting away of the tent. He says, and all this is from God. Who reconciled us to himself Through Christ. You see, we're alienated from God on two counts: from His side, on account of His wrath, and from our side, on account of our rebellion.
Therefore, It is fundamentally important that God reconciles us to Himself. And the Father gives the Son, and the Son gives himself, in order that we who are by nature separated from him, without God and without hope. Might be restored to a relationship with him. And all of this at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can I just say in passing how important it is for us to think about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ?
How important it is to sing about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. How easy it is for us to be diverted from the very heart of what it means for God to reconcile men and women to Himself.
So that we might understand that the cross is where this reconciliation is provided. That Christ pardons those who believe. Although we have sinned And although we deserve his condemnation, Without this, we would be excluded from God's presence forever. And in the cross, he displays and he satisfies his perfect justice. By executing the punishment that sinners deserve upon his only beloved Son, and without that, God would not be true to himself.
One of my friends in Scotland, a younger fellow, said something not so long ago that struck me as being very, very helpful. It's simplistic, but it was helpful. He said in passing, he said to me, he says, you know, Alistair, for something to get clean.
Something else has to get dirty. For something to get clean, something else has to get dirty. You take a piece of scod towel. In fact, I just remember I'm having a flashback here, driving in Scotland with your president, and all of a sudden he says, stop the car.
So I stopped the car. I said, what's the problem? He says, look at your windshield. He said, it is filthy. Filthy.
And he then proceeded to find the mechanism necessary to clean it up. I can't remember what he used, maybe an old sock from the Or something, but in order for the windscreen to be clean, the scot towel had to get dirty. And the wonder of reconciliation is that all of my dirtiness is born in Christ. And all of the cleanness that is his. By his sacrifice of atonement is Reckon to me.
Again. Simple helps me. Cecil Francis Alexander, the Wife of a Presbyterian minister who wrote hymns in order to teach young people theology.
So she wrote for the incarnation: once in royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, you know. And uh she wrote for um The doctrine of creation, all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. And she wrote for the doctrine of the atonement: there is a green hill far away outside a city wall with amazing verse. for boys and girls to understand there was none other good enough. to pay the price of sin.
He only. could unlock the gate of heaven. and let us in. No, the cross is where reconciliation is provided. And the church is where reconciliation is to be proclaimed.
Actually, the church is where reconciliation is to be displayed. But we'll leave that for another time. It is where it is to be proclaimed. It is to be declared. There's the rub, isn't it?
Because the message of reconciliation, which again 2 Corinthians 5 is entrusted to us as ambassadors of Christ. Is a muted declaration whenever the church in any generation loses. as loses a deep-seated conviction concerning the truth And the power and the relevance of the gospel. And I say to you as a young person, unless you are convinced in your heart of hearts concerning the truth and the power and the relevance of the gospel, there will be no reason for you, there will be no propulsion for you to go out and make much of that in your life and in your lifestyle. If you lose confidence in the very truths that are fundamental here, then it will matter little how long you study here.
And the church bears testimony to that.
So, therefore, when Paul is concerned for these believers in Ephesus or Colossi, when through the scriptures he speaks into our lives today, the Spirit of God brings it home, it's a reminder to us that when this gripped Paul, he says, the love of Christ constrains us, the one died for all, and therefore all died. And he says, and so we must get this message out there. And that's why he says, we beseech you. We implore you. By the mercies of God.
We beseech you, we implore you, be reconciled. to God. Receive your reconciliation. You see When you teach the Bible, and some of you do teach the Bible, and you're going to do it some more. Let me tell you what your primary aim is.
But well, let me tell you what it isn't. Your primary aim is not to provide information about a passage of scripture. with two or three practical pointers at the end of it.
So that you might know what you're supposed to do with the talk you just heard.
Now, our primary aim when we teach the Bible. is in order that we might have A life-changing encounter. with God. Because the scriptures, as we saw on the screen, have been breathed out By God. When God's word is properly proclaimed, God's voice is really heard.
And it is that conviction which underlies Paul's emphasis here. You're listening to Alastair Begg on Truth for Life, and we'll hear more about this human predicament tomorrow. You know, as adults we're not the only ones who struggle trying to define our purpose and identity. In fact, there may be no more important issue facing parents to day than how we help our children discover a biblical answer to the question, Who am I? If you have older children or teens in your home, I want to encourage you to get a copy of the book that we're making available today.
It's called Grounded in Grace Helping Kids Build Their Identity in Christ. Grounded in Grace is a book written by a seasoned Christian counselor who offers practical advice for how to have open, honest conversations with your kids about identity and self worth. The book addresses how to help a child who has overly grounded their identity in athletics or academic performance, and it coaches you on how to redirect them. to seeing themselves first and foremost as children of God. This book also addresses the hard subjects of sexual orientation and gender identity.
You can ask for your copy of the book Grounded in Grace today when you donate to support Truth for Life using our mobile app. or online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Or you can call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail your donation along with your request for the book, Write to Truth for Life, at P.O. Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio, 44139.
Thanks for joining us today. Becoming a Christian isn't simply a matter of making a decision to become religious or to clean up your life. Tomorrow we'll learn what happens when someone is genuinely converted. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
