The God Who Reveals: Part One

This past week some of the staff at the Village Community Church took the opportunity to head down to Louisville to join with other pastors for gospel focused edification at the Together for the Gospel conference.  The three-day conference would supply us with many things, but the common takeaway was a renewed call to evangelism. We were deeply convicted with the realization that in different forms we had all allowed life, fear, or sin to distract us and lessen our hearts desire to see the lost saved.  This has led me to write and share the encouragement given to me and to remind us of our Christian duty.

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

Revelation

This conversation, a series of posts, finds it origins in God, the sovereign One who reaches down to reveal himself to sinful men.  We see this all throughout the Old Testament, from his covenant with Abram, to his calling of Moses, to the instructions given on Sinai, God reaches down to connect to His lost creation.  God’s creation was/is lost, not because the hand of God did not keep them, but because man had chosen to seek the false pleasures of the world and sin against the one who loved them. In Exodus 32 we see the children of Israel, those who had had seen the hand of God bring them across the Red Sea, shower bread from heaven, and lead them by a pillar of fire, turn from God and look for something tangible to worship. This act of idolatry is not only the sin of the Israelite people, but in some way the sin of all men, a sin deserving of judgment. Though deserving of judgment, eternal death and separation from their Creator, God pours His grace out on man and reveals himself once again.

Jesus, the fullness of God’s revelation, is God’s gift of grace to mankind.  In Jesus we find redemption, reconciliation, true life, and true hope!  Yet, God didn’t stop there, for He found it pleasing to inspire different men throughout history to pen His words and record redemptive and revelatory history. Thus we receive the Scriptures, the word of God, written to lead men to God, and instruct men in righteousness. Paul puts it this way in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”   God’s revelation through His Word is our basis for evangelism, for within these pages we come to see Christ and join in His mission. The Scriptures.  God’s Word. Inerrant.  Sufficient.  True.  By this word God has revealed Himself and His plan for salvation.  We have no hope of effective evangelism if we don’t believe that God’s Word, His story of self-revelation, and His powerful Gospel are true…really true! We must be a people that cling tightly to the Word of God, that we may know God, receive instruction for this life and be obedient to God’s call.

Further Reading: Authority by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones; The God Who Is There by D.A. Carson; Taking God At His Word by Kevin DeYoung

Grace and Peace,

Michael Carlisle