An Invitation to See More of God on Sunday Morning
May 22, 2009
A few weeks ago I asked you to consider attending one of the two Sunday School classes that meets each Sunday morning at 9:30. One is our parenting class, where we are reading and discussing Grace Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel. If you are a parent seeking to raise your child in a gospel-centered home, I hope you will make it a priority to join the discussion each Sunday morning at the House.
The other class that meets is our Adult Sunday School class, which meets in the Fireside Room. The brothers who teach this class have embarked on a crucial study of the attributes of God. I could not recommend a better course of study. Everything we hold dear at Whitton, from warm fellowship to missions to worship to the gospel finds its origins in the character of God. But instead of writing an extended plug myself, I thought I would share from a prophetic voice in American Christianity of why this study is so indispensable. The following is from A.W. Tozer’s book The Knowledge of the Holy, which he wrote in 1961.
The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.
The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.
With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. Modern Christianity is simply not producing the kind of Christian who can appreciate or experience the life in the Spirit. The words, “Be still, and know that I am God,” mean next to nothing to the self-confident, bustling worshipper in this middle period of the twentieth century.
The only way to recoup our spiritual losses is to go back to the cause of them and make such corrections as the truth warrants. The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives, we must begin to think of God more nearly as He is.
Whether we are pursuing gospel-centered parenting or the knowledge of our God, may he reveal more of himself to us that we might better reflect his glory in our world.
Learning with you,
Pastor Chris