Talk Notes

Some (slightly amended) notes from recent talk I gave...

The World as we see it...
Songwriters and poets tell us that love makes the world go round. What do you think makes the world go round?

• Money? (Ec.10:19)
• Knowledge? (Ec.12:12)
• Power? (Ec.4:1)
• Luck? (Ec.9:11)

None of this is new - in short, it’s a survival of the fittest manifesto.
In this dark vision of the world, religion becomes a means of keeping / acquiring these things (Luke 20:46-47)
So are the poets naïve idealists?

But The Bible Paints a Different Picture
We meet the God who is love (1 John 4:16)

• Love is not an attribute, it’s a movement. (e.g. John 3:16)
• This God is a community of distinct persons in loving unity (2Cor.13:14)
• This God created everything (Prov.30:2-4 / John 1:10)
• The love this God has had eternally between the three persons, he wants to share with humanity and has given creation to humanity as a gift to enjoy and through which he will teach them wisdom. (Gen.1:27-30)

But humanity went to war against this God

• They hijacked this gift from God (Gen. 3:22) becoming lovers of themselves not lovers of God (2 Tim. 3:4)
• We inherit their guilt / nature and add to / multiply it ourselves – inventing new ways of doing evil (Rom.1:30) e.g. Internet crime didn't exist 50 years ago - we invented it after someone else invented the internet.
• Evil isn’t just doing bad things – it’s doing "good" things (Isaiah 5:20) whilst refusing to love God (Matt.22:37)
• We have airbrushed God out of the picture (Rom.1:18)
• We see nothing wrong in what we have done (Prov. 30:20)
• We deserve to die for this (Rom.1:32)

But this God…

• Became one of us (Heb 4:15)
• Reminding us of what we had chosen to forget – that God is love – sacrificial love (John 13:1)
• At the Cross – Jesus bore the wrath of God for all our rebellion against him (2. Cor. 5:21)
• At the resurrection – Jesus in incredible love, shares his victory over sin, death and the devil giving new life to the world (1 Pet. 1:3)
• Living the “good life” means He gives us his Spirit that we might know and love him (Rom. 5:5)
• There is a more real world beyond our eyes where those who love him will be given new bodies and live with him forever. (1 Cor.15:48-49)

What will you do with this God and your future?