The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

Ok, so here's the blog I promised all of you and just to prove to certain people that I wasn't lying (see comments on previous post), I have written a blog about my trip to Minneapolis for a conference about the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World. So here it goes...

At the conference there were 6 main speakers, who were Tim Keller, D. A. Carson, David Wells, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, and Voddie Baucham. The last three of these amazing men of the faith were the ones that left more of an impact on me than the first three although all of the speakers did an amazing job. I hope that I can explain to you in a clear and concise manner all that I have learned, but since I know that is nigh on impossible the following is my best effort to attain that standard...

Voddie Baucham was the first out of these three men, to speak and he did a phenomenal job. Here are some of my notes from his teaching of the Supremacy of Christ in Truth:

What I learned from Voddie Baucham:

There are two main worldviews:

~Christian Theism
~Secular Humanism

Christian theism believes that there is a necessary, intelligent, sovereign, all-knowing God. Some other unchanging beliefs of Christian theism is that all humans are specially made and that the ethics that we as humans have ethics, which are absolute.

Secular humanism believes truth is relative and humans are glorified ape-like creatures. Secular humanism also believes that ethics are based on culture so your ethics really all depend on your culture.

Voddie stated that in the course of every human life a person will strive to answer the following 4 questions:

Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is wrong with the world?
How can what is wrong be made right?

The answers to these questions according to secular humanism are stated below:

Who am I? I am a glorified ape-like creature without rhyme or reason.
Why am I here? I am on this earth to consume and enjoy.
What is wrong with the world? The reason the world is off is that humans are insufficiently educated and/or governed.

The true biblical answers to these questions are stated below:

Who am I? I am the crowning glory of God's creation, created by Christ and for Christ.
Why am I here? We are not here to consume and enjoy, rather to glorify and honor Christ.
What is wrong with the world? Me!!! I am hostile in mind and engaged in evil deeds.
How can what is wrong be made right? It can only be made right through the sacrifice of Christ. The spotless, sinless Son of God was crushed for our iniquity.

Voddie also said that if you are asking the question:

"How can God be so good and all-knowing and let bad things happen?" you need to rephrase the question. The correct way to state the question is "How is it that God saw what I did yesterday and what I thought last night and did not kill me in my sleep?". Once you have stated the question in this way, then the topic is open for discussion.

The following are some of my notes from Mark Driscoll:

Many times, in our culture, Jesus's incarnation or His supernatural being are exaggerated, so people don't seem to be able to relate or imitate Jesus. Both of these views of Christ are faulty; we serve a God bigger than that.

In order to face the postmodern world that we live in today we must do 2 things:

1. Contend for the truth.

Contend for truth always without compromising. Contend for things such as the scriptures, the virgin birth, sovereignty of God, hell, etc.

2. Contextualize.

Share the gospel in such a way that you are not compromising in any way on truth, but you are still being relevant and in the culture in order to win some.

It is not compassionate to withhold the truth of Jesus Christ's subsitutionary atonement.

Finally, don't be seeker-sensitive, be seeker-sensible.
Don't have relavitism, have relevantism.

What I learned from John Piper:

1. God - the Father - the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this one God, is the only Being that has no beginning and no end, therefore, we all must rely on Him for being and value.

We are so much lower in value than the triune God - Isaiah 40:15-17

2. Since the beginning God has been supremely joyful, therefore he had no deficiency or need to create this world.

3. God created mankind in His image for His own glory; to display His glory.

Psalm 9
Colossians 1:27
2 Cor. 4:6
Isaiah 66:5

Joy comes from knowing the glory of God.

4. Christ came to earth, lived and died, so that we might know Him, in order to be fitted to serve Him forever.

What the law could not do, weak as it was in the flesh, God did by sending Jesus to die.

Nothing is more crucial for humanity, but to escape the wrath of the infinite God.
1 Peter 3:18

5. The enjoyment of God above is the deepest way, in which His glory is reflected back to Him.

Joy was designed by God. Joy rises as a witness to something that you treasure. There is no hypocritical joy.

6. The enjoyment of Christ is the spring of all visible acts of self-denying, sacrificial love that is displayed to others, which shows how important God is to us. Matthew 5:16

Rejoice that Christianity is so weird. We have an amazing perfect Savior in heaven; His name is Jesus. The postmodern culture needs to hear the gospel, but they also need to see sacricial love on our part.

7. The only joy that reflects the Word of God and overflwos in God-glorifying love is rooted in the true knowledge of God.

Nehemiah 8:12
John 17:13
1 Samuel 3:21

Jesus is honored when we know and enjoy Him fully.

8. The right knowledge of God and His ways is the servant of God-glorifying joy and the love for His people.

If you cut truth out of friendship, then the joy that comes from that friendship will not honor God.

9. Let us not marginalize or minimize the doctrine, the gospel, the truth.

10. May the church become the buttress of truth, and therefore of love, and joy and display God's glory which is the very reason we were created.

There is one more thing that I learned from this amazing conference and that is this (something that all the speaker's stated):

We have no other Jesus to give to this postmodern culture. He is the same today and for all eternity and He is the only one that is truly capable of saving a person from their utter and complete bondage to sin.

Anyways, these are just my thoughts on the conference. I hope that they make sense, and since I know that I could not do the conference justice, the audio is free at desiringgod.org. I would highly reccomend that you listen to the entire conference because it was awesome!

promise

Ok...I just wanted to state that I just got back from one of the most amazing conferences I've ever been to. I would also like to promise you all that as soon as I have my thoughts together I will post!!! I promise...