Who’s serving whom? Christians forgetting God’s place at center stage

James B. Longley, years before he was to become the governor of Maine, was elected by his peers as an outstanding member of his college graduating class. It was a great honor.

But when the graduation ceremony was over, Longley’s mother took him aside and said, “Jim, I was very proud of you today, and I think that you will win many honors in your life. But keep one thing in mind: Despite the honors, there’s one thing more than any other that will determine the turnout at your funeral. It’ll be the weather.”

That day, Mrs. Longley encouraged in her son an attribute that many in our own generation would do well to exhibit – namely, humility.

The Bible says that none of us are to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, and that all of us are to humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand.

Yet today the trend seems to be in the opposite direction. Humankind seems increasingly egotistical and – here’s another big word – anthropocentric. Know what that means? It means “centered on man.” And every one of us is susceptible. Even Christians. Perhaps especially Christians.

One evangelical leader had just narrowly escaped serious physical harm. When he was asked to comment on his miraculous deliverance, he said: “Well, I’m thanking God. He has always been there for me.”

Did he really intend to say it that way? Regardless, his expression seems typical of the times. Instead of man being there to serve God, it’s as if we now see God eagerly waiting around to run errands for us.

What arrogance. The idea that Almighty God primarily exists to serve us, fulfill our desires and cater to our agenda engenders in us a dangerously warped view of reality.

It’s easy to understand why we become so confused when adversity strikes. We’re assuming that our personal well-being is among the great principles by which God governs the universe. And then we begin to suffer. So we are dumbfounded. The idea of a God who is great and good without pandering to us personally is a big stretch.

In his classic essay “God in the Dock” (a “dock” is the old English term for the witness stand in a courtroom), C.S. Lewis says: “Ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For modern man the roles are reversed. He is judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: If God should have some reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock.”

Christians routinely and mistakenly infer that Romans 8:28 offers the guarantee that God is always working things out for our own immediate advantage. If something goes wrong at 9 a.m., by late afternoon we should be able to see how that inconvenience is accruing to our benefit.

What?! Are we so full of ourselves that we actually reckon that what serves our own selfish purposes is one and the same with what Almighty God deems ultimately, eternally good?

The issue of whose purposes matter most no doubt plays out most critically in regard to human salvation. Does God owe any individual salvation from eternity in hell? Does he owe us at least some small chance to be saved? To the extent that you think so, his grace must seem much less amazing.

Commenting on Romans 3:3-4, pastor and author Dr. John Piper says this: “We live in a time and … culture that is so drunk with the centrality of the values of men, and ourselves in particular, and our rights, and our virtues, and our esteem, that a sentence like this must land on us either with absolute incomprehensibility or rage. Because what [this text] says is if every man is lost, God is true and loses nothing. God is not leaning on us for anything. Let God be true, let God be righteous, let God be faithful, let God be God and every man a liar and perishing.

“O God, please make me meek enough today to know that all of the kingdom and all of the power and all of the glory belong to you alone. And please make me humble enough today to cry out to you for the mercy which you are so typically willing to show.”

The Rev. Daryl E. Witmer is founder and director of the AIIA Institute, a national apologetics ministry, and associate pastor of the Monson Community Church. He may be reached at the Web site AIIA.ChristianAnswers.net or by e-mail at AIIAInstitute@aol.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.