#3. I am the problem.

The four questions everyone asks:
1) Who am I?
2) Why am I here?
3) What is wrong with the world?
4) How can what is wrong be made right?

Postmodernist answer: People are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. That's what's wrong with the world. People either don't know enough, or they are not being watched enough.

Christan Theist answer: I AM THE PROBLEM.

I am. Me, who is hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. Despite the fact that I am the crowning glory of the creation of God, created to live and bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ, I am instead hostile toward the One by whom and for whom I was created. That is what is wrong with the world. In short, sin is what's wrong with the world.

People are always asking the philosophical question, "If God's so powerful and good, how come bad stuff happens?" Don't answer that question until it is asked properly:

Look me in the eyes and ask me this: "How on earth can a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and not kill me in my sleep last night?" Ask it that way, and we can talk. But until you ask it that way, you do not understand the issue. Until you ask the question that way, you believe the problem is out there somewhere. Until you ask the question that way, you believe that there are some individuals who, in and of themselves, deserve something other than the wrath of Almighty God. When you ask me the question that way--when you say, "Why is it that we are here today? Why has he not consumed and devoured each and every one of us? Why? Why, O God, does your judgment and your wrath tarry?"-- then you truly understand the issue.

The problem with the world is me. The problem is the fact that I do not acknowledge the supremacy of Christ in truth. The problem is that I start with myself as the measure of all things. I judge God based upon how well he carries out my agenda for the world, and I believe in the supremacy of me in truth. As a result, I want a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign. If I have a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign, I can wield his power. But if my God is both omnipotent and sovereign, I am at his mercy.

Who am I? I am the crowning glory of the creation of God, knit together in my mother's womb. Why am I here? I am here to bring glory and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ. What is wrong with the world? Me. I don't do what I was meant to do.


from Baucham Jr., Voddie. "Truth and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World." The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World Eds. John Piper and Justin Taylor. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007: 63-64.