Sermon notes (.pdf) sermon_Acts2

[20/05] – an additional note

Kevin pointed out to me this morning that in my sermon the way I called myself “evangelical deist” is confusing. What I really meant was that although I am not a deist (I don’t believe in deism as much as I believe in God’s omnipresence) in theory, I’m still operating like a deist in practice. This is the sin I must confess. I borrowed this title “evangelical deist” from John Woodbridge’s lecture at the SMBC preaching conference. He used this title to refer to those who are evangelicals yet operating like a deist in practice.

Deism doesn’t seem to be that popular today, however, its subtle influcence in our daily practice is still alive, even in churches today that take their stand on the Bible. We don’t say this out loud that God’s interference in people’s lives came to a halt sometime in the past (in the apostles’ time, or at the Reformation or the revivals, but surely before our time). However, “our meager prayer lives, our anxiety, our dependence on novel techniques in evangelism, our hope in techonolgy to solve spritual problem, our doubt that loving discipline can restore wandering brothers or sisters to repentance and reconciliation – all these testify to our unspoken assumption that God’s real action is in the past and in the future, but not in the present. We act as though Jesus wound up the church and then flung us out on our own when we say, ‘Our church cant’ grow in this neighborhood,’ or ‘I won’t apologize until she does – and sho won’t!’ or ‘He says he’s sorry, but he’ll do it again,” or ‘What will become of us?’” (Dennis E. Johnson The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption, P&R Publishing, 1997)