So the whole purpose of creation from this
text is that there would be a platform
for a phenomenon called the Church.
And that that Church would have something to
fulfill, for which reason God did not think
it extravagant to create all things.
And that purpose has nothing to do explicitly
nor directly with the benefits that would come
to men through the Church, or to the
nations, or to the Church itself.
Rather, it's to make a demonstration of something
called the manifold wisdom of God to some
dimension of reality that is above the world
and invisible, called the principalities and powers of
the air.
And that this is the eternal purpose of
God in Christ Jesus.
This is staggering, it's contradictory, it pulls the
rug out from under our feet and provides
a purpose that we had never once ever
considered, and Paul says is the very reason
for all creation.
What kind of a Church is it that
could go on from generation to generation and
never once consider and take to heart seriously
God's purpose for all creation, for which reason
he has established the Church.
How dare we promote our programs and consider
our activity independent of this central purpose for
our being as Church.
I want to say that the Church that
gives scant attention to this, that chooses to
ignore it, or that dismisses this as some
kind of euphoric play on words that is
nice to hear but not to be taken
seriously, is ipso facto not the Church.
It's an institution, it's a band of enthusiasts
who are itching to promote their own ministries,
to perform things that they think to please
God.
It's not a Church that is concerned with
that which pleases God according to his own
definition and according to his own words.
God thinks it important, he doesn't explain why,
that a certain demonstration be made by the
only agency on earth that can't conceivably make
it, and for which reason he's created the
earth, that it could sustain this phenomenon called
the Church, and that purpose is for that
Church to demonstrate to this invisible realm of
principalities and powers, whoever they are, the manifold
wisdom of God, and that is the eternal
purpose of God in Christ Jesus.
Only if we are occupied with the eternal
can we be of any significance in the
now.
The Church that is only occupied with now,
that gives scant attention to those things that
are eternal, is strangely and ironically irrelevant.
If you want to be left alone, just
ignore this text.
If you want to go on with business
as usual and promote your individual ministries, just
ignore this.
And then they will say, Jesus we know
and Paul we know, but who are you?
You're not even worthy of our consideration.
That Church that requires our attention and that
causes us stark fear, is a Church that
does not have to have a payoff and
receive a benefit for taking to itself a
purpose in God.
Even if that purpose threatens a consequence that
will be painful, all the more is that
very willingness itself the demonstration of that wisdom.
Because there are two wisdoms in collision, and
you need to understand that in this context,
Paul is not talking about wisdom as cleverness
or wise procedure or behavior on the basis
of knowledge or experience.
Maybe the better word for the kind of
manifold wisdom that God is wanting made known,
is a value, a system of values, a
way of understanding.
There's a collision between value systems.
One originates from below and has the Prince
of Darkness as its author, and the whole
world is enveloped and taken up with it,
and never once questions its truth or legitimacy.
For example, take care of number one.
If you don't, who will?
Seek your own self-interest, the Declaration of
Independence, the self-evident truth of the pursuit
of happiness as being the commendable purpose for
human existence.
Avoid suffering and pain, pursue pleasure.
Seek and take care of yourself.
Avoid loss, sacrifice.
The wisdom of this world by which the
whole world lives its life.
It sounds rational, it's reasonable, it's addressed to
the self-evident needs of men to put
themselves first.
It's an appeal to self-interest, it's an
appeal to self.
So what about a church that is willing
to adopt something as central to its whole
purpose for being that offers no promise of
any reward to itself?
No advantage, no blessing, but on the contrary,
that this will mark you before these powers
because you are a people of such a
kind as to put the eternal purpose of
God before every other purpose.
So you're willing even to suffer the opposition
of the principalities and powers because you want
to see the eternal purpose of God fulfilled,
even though it offers no prospect of improvement
or betterment or blessing, but only trial, opposition,
persecution.
That is the wisdom of God.
And only those who have a concern for
the heart of God and the satisfaction of
that heart will make His purpose their own.
And that is the church.
Instead, the church is itchy, wanting to find
something to do, has to have a program,
needs to justify its existence precisely because it
does not see its existence in any of
the terms, but in responding and meeting the
things that are immediate and about them.
It has not seen what would have given
it security and foundation in God, namely the
taking up of the eternal purpose.
It would have freed it from the necessity
and the itch to do and to perform.
Something that precedes and is greater than doing
and performing is being.
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