At the root of our existence as creatures is the bond between God and ourselves. Our most fundamental relationship in life is a religious one, one which governs and shapes everything that we do. We are created the servants of God, a relationship which is fundamentally religious. Religion is usually taken to mean a private relationship with God. But this relationship is not established when we turn to God. We are God’s creatures whether we recognise it or not, and the failure to acknowledge God and serve him obediently is a religious failure. Human life, whether it is obedient or disobedient towards God, is religious, and that religion is either true religion or rebellious religion. True religion is the turning of our intrinsic and foundational relationship with God back into the paths which it ought always to have followed. This is not a private isolated faith, but one which renews our lives, in all its relationships. The Bible defines true religion as caring for widows and orphans, and remaining uncontaminated from the defilement of the system of the world. You can’t carry out that kind of religion in isolation: caring for others involves us in their lives, and keeping ourselves free from the contamination of the world does not take place by isolating ourselves from the world but by remaining pure through the Gospel while still involved in the world. True religion is not privatised religion: it is the obedient response of the heart in our covenantal relationship with God: the covenant between God and his people - a communal relationship, a community with human and divine members.

All societal structures and institutions are shaped by human activity from the complex of human relationships created by God. That is, human society is religious in character, because it reflects the religious commitment of the humans who shape it. And we have shaped our society in ways which reflect our sin, the violation of our foundational relationship with God. But the redeeming work of Christ counters sin wherever it is found: the redemption of Christ is as extensive as sin, so whatever sin has corrupted, Christ can redeem. If Christ cannot save all, he cannot save at all. If we think his saving work cannot extend to all the intimate relationships of human life, to all the creatures which we have held in bondage because of our sin, then we have a Saviour who is not the Creator, a saviour who has rejected the creation and doomed it to destruction, a heresy known as Gnosticism which has plagued the church from its earliest days.

The redemption of Christ brings healing through repentance, and renewal both of the human beings who have been bound by sin, and the structures which are shaped by human activity. That is, the shaping of those structures formerly reflected our alienation from God, but now they can reflect our obedience to God. The brokenness in the relationships which are the foundation of these structures is restored in Christ, and if the foundations change, the very structures themselves can be changed. This is the promise of abundant life: everything that we do, everything we are involved in, every form of human activity can be renewed in Christ, and the products of that human activity will show the renewal of the religious root of human life.

But this promise of the renewal of human structures in society is not automatic. Evangelicals often criticise liberals for wanting to change structures in society, and claim that if the individual hearts are changed, then the structures will change. That this is not true can be seen from the lack of structural change in spite of large numbers of conversions. The reason for this is that we have not preached a gospel for human beings in relationship to the entire creation, but a gospel which treats us as isolated from the creation, and focuses on preparing us to inhabit some entirely "spiritual" realm. It is also an individualistic gospel that has no bearing on our life together as a community, and so such a gospel has no power to effect a change in communal structures. It is not that the structures will not change if the hearts are changed, but that the change in the hearts has not been deep or radical enough, that is, our limited presentation of the gospel has obscured large parts of the Scriptural teaching on salvation. A true change of heart that recognises our task and calling before God, that brings a new vision of who we are and why we are here, will bring conscious efforts to change the structures of our society, arising from a recognition of our responsibility before God for obedience in all the relationships of our life. (Luke 19:1-10, Zacchaeus)

So then, our fundamental relationship with God is religious. That is, the first and foremost characteristic of being human is to be created by God to serve him and to respond to him in love. Everything we do is religious, since everything we do arises from our creatureliness: the fact that God created us for a specific purpose, to care for and develop the world that he made. This service of God is not some kind of drudgery, but an invitation to participate in the greatest adventure ever known: running the universe. In the ancient Babylonian myths, human beings were created by the gods because they were tired of looking after the world and wanted someone else to do it for them, and to provide them with sacrifices to feed them. This is in stark contrast to the invitation by God to join him as his co-labourers in what is the most exciting activity imaginable, and in stark contrast to the creator God who has no need of anything. Yet often our approach to the world has more in common with Babylonian paganism than with Scripture.

So then, since we live in a world which belongs to God, what should our lives be like? We live in a secular society, and just what that means we will look at more closely in the next session. But for now, consider what it means to be believing people in God’s world. What is it that we are to believe? What does it mean to believe?

The content of our faith can be summed up in one simple sentence:

The creation of the Father, fallen in sin, is being redeemed by the death of the Son of God, and recreated by the Spirit of God into the Kingdom of God. Herman Bavinck.

In this simple sentence the whole of our faith is contained. Where do we find ourselves? In the creation which belongs to our heavenly Father, brought into being by him, constantly upheld and ordered by him, with all that it needs being provided by God. We were created to care for this earth, to rule it on God’s behalf, to work with it and make something of it so as to display the glory of God through what he has made possible with it. But what has happened to it? It is fallen in sin because of our rebellion against our rightful ruler and legitimate Lord. The world is full of distortion and corruption, sickness, famine, warfare, abuse and neglect. What has God done in response to that? He has sent his only Son to die in our place, so that all that God has made can be restored to its proper relationship to God, and to the other creatures with whom they share God’s world. We no longer need to be bound by spiritual wickedness, the law of sin and death, the powers of darkness. We can be set free in Christ so that all that God has made, all that is under our care, will no longer display the destructive effects of sin, but the renewing and redeeming power of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

That means that anything at all which is contained in the creation, anything under our care, anything which is a product of our activity, can be restored and renewed in Christ. That includes the structures of our society as well; the health system, the education system, political structures, business enterprises, all those institutions which we have brought into being. These are not our creations, but the formation of different kinds of relationships which God himself gave to us. Nothing exists save that which God made possible. We did not invent governments, and banks, and schools, and transport systems. These are the result of human formation of God’s creation; bringing to light what God himself made possible. Unless such things were grounded in the creation God made, they could not exist.

But what is it that our secular society believes? In contrast to our Christian faith, a secular society believes something quite different. It certainly does not believe that the world was brought into being and is ruled over by God. It certainly does not believe that the major problem is sin, rebellion against our rightful Lord. Nor does it believe that the solution to our problems is repentance and faith, and we are certainly not heading towards the kingdom of God when he alone will be acknowledged as the only legitimate ruler over all that exists.

So what kind of society results from such a belief? A society in which marriage is an optional way of relating to each other, with various other possibilities also open to us. After all, such relationships are entirely our own business; there are no standards which we must recognise. A society which is governed almost entirely on monetary terms, so that we know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. A society which does not help the weak and the powerless, but expects them to manage on their own. A society in which those who have are doing very nicely thank you, but do not recognise any responsibility for those who have not. After all, we are all individuals with the freedom to live as we choose. We have no responsibility to care for each other, for the concept of responsibility is based on the notion that there is someone or something to whom we are responsible. What could that be? God does not exist, the law is something of our own making, there is nothing higher than us to whom we are responsible!

That is the basis of a secular society: there is no higher authority to whom we are accountable in any way. The laws we make are entirely for our own convenience, and if they are no longer convenient, we can unmake them. The essence of the French Revolution, which lies behind all the secular concepts of society today, was the phrase, No God, No Master. And the principle which flowed from that, which is the root of humanism, is: We accept no law save that which we impose upon ourselves. By these means, society has become what it is. There is no God who rules over us, and so we are able to do whatever we like. There is no final accounting which we must face. There are no masters appointed to govern us, that is, we appoint our own rulers, and if we don’t like them, we can remove them. Political sovereignty comes not from God but from the people. Therefore, whatever the people want is what the political masters will give them, if they want to retain their hold on power. We accept no law save that which we impose on ourselves. That is, nobody else is going to tell me what to do. I will decide for myself what right and wrong are. And whatever I say is right is right. There are no outside standards, no authorities to challenge me, I am king. Of course, when you get a whole society which has no standards save those they choose to accept for their own convenience, anarchy reigns.

How can we live as Christians in a secular society? What does it mean for us to live as Christians in a secular society? It is possible for us to survive in this alien environment only if we hold firmly to the faith that we have in God. That means, that to prevent ourselves being sucked into the secularism that dominates the society we live in, we must learn how to serve God in everything that we do. The whole framework, flavour, character of our lives must be Christian. It is not enough just to worship God on Sunday, or to be active in witnessing, or studying the Bible and praying. It is not that these things are wrong, but we often take the view that that is what Christianity is all about! That is not true! To limit our faith to such things is to have already given in to the secularism which dominates our society.

However, because of sin, and in our case that means secularism, our understanding of the creation is misinterpreted and twisted, and we need the Scriptures to correctly interpret the world to us. For example, read what God has said concerning agricultural practice in Isaiah 28:23-29.

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer ploughs for planting, does he plough continually? Does he keep breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has levelled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot, and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over cummin; caraway is beaten out with a rod, and cummin with a stick. Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever. Though he drives the wheels of his threshing-cart over it, his horses do not grind it. All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, wonderful in counsel and magnificent in wisdom. (Isaiah 28:23-29).

How do we know how to grow food, how to prepare the ground, the proper way to gather in each type of grain? Because God teaches us, not by dreams or voices from heaven, but by experience, remembering what worked previously and how to repeat that result. This does not come about because of some natural ability we have in ourselves, it happens because of the way God made us, the abilities he gave, the tasks that he has entrusted to us, the world which we are intimately related to. As a result of who we are, because of who God made us, we can discover how to plant and reap crops. Unless we acknowledge that it is God who enables us to do these things, then we are no longer living in faith but in rebellion. How else do we explain our ability to grow crops successfully? Because we are able to discover these things for ourselves. We can invent machines and methods by which to achieve these results. It is all our doing, God has nothing to do with it. To take this attitude is to be secular people, to deny the sovereignty of God and his rule over our lives. Why does Isaiah include a discussion of farming practice in his book? To remind us that it is God alone who enables all these things. We need the revelation of God to open our eyes to see in this way. Any other way of seeing this situation is blindness.

As it says in the Psalms, it is God who makes the grass to grow and the trees to bear fruit. It is not some mysterious life principle or bio-chemical arrangement within the plants, but it is God who causes them to grow and to bear fruit. In our sinfulness we seek instead for any other interpretation. That is not to say that we cannot detect bio-chemical processes, or development of living things from seed to mature plant. But it is not something inherent in these plants which is at work, it is God the creator through his ordering word which brings these things to pass. A secular perspective on life leaves God right out of the picture, and therefore distorts life itself. God is the ground and root of our entire existence, and so if we deny him, we deny ourselves. We cannot recognise who we are, or why we are here, or what task we have in life, if we do not begin by centring ourselves on God. There at the very heart of our existence is the relationship we have with God. Is it a relationship of love and obedience, or one of rebellion and rejection? Whatever the answer to that question is will determine the kind of lives that we lead, for out of that relationship springs the whole of life. Whatever lies at the centre will shape and direct everything else.

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