Cosmic Power and Our Witness
Written by Jared Burkholder | Pastor of Outreach and Connections
A.W. Tozer famously wrote: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[1] The best kind of worship and the truest evangelism starts with the character of God first.
It’s not by accident that the Bible itself opens with “In the beginning, God…” Worship starts with the majesty of God. A needy, sniveling God who comes cap in hand to ask for adoration doesn’t inspire lifelong faithfulness from his people. And a God that merely improves your existence or adds something to your life story isn’t a compelling deity to choose to follow.
The Longing for Transcendence in a Disenchanted World
At Grace Baptist, we think one of the best approaches to engaging the lost starts with the desire for transcendence. That is, in a modern world that has rejected any concept of a god, humans are longing for meaning and purpose. We want there to be a mystical, magical, spiritual side to the physical world we inhabit. We were created to want a world that is enchanted and modernity has left us with a sterile strip mall of an existence. As depression, anxiety, and suicide rates continue to climb, we can recognize the God-given longing that people have for more than this life can offer. Conversations around fulfillment, beauty, hope, and purpose help point lost people to finding not just what they crave, but God himself.
“Worship starts with the majesty of God. A needy, sniveling God who comes cap in hand to ask for adoration doesn’t inspire lifelong faithfulness from his people.”
Creation, Lordship, and the Weight of the Gospel
And yet, if our own worship or our approach to evangelism fails to rightly highlight the immensity of God, his act of creation, and his lordship over all creation, we run the risk of trivializing the gospel and the very person of God.
John Stott addresses this in his commentary on the book of Acts:
Many people are rejecting our gospel today not because they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be trivial. People are looking for an integrated world-view which makes sense of all their experience. We learn from Paul that we cannot preach the gospel of Jesus without the doctrine of God, or the cross without the creation, or salvation without judgment.[2]
A gospel of self-fulfillment or a Jesus that exists to only improve my life is not sufficiently compelling to call people away from their worldview to follow God. Which leads us back to the whole point of the first few chapters of Genesis, which establishes not just the act of God in creating but the role of God as creator.
As Gavin Ortlund writes, “We must help our non-Christian friends and neighbors understand that God created them, and therefore they are morally accountable to God and need him infinitely.”[3] Unless the doctrine of creation is understood and believed, mankind won’t care about God’s moral standard or how he measures up. Only once the reality of mankind’s relationship to God as creation to creator is established can people grasp the moral ought of God’s character, the intention of God’s design, and the beauty of gospel redemption.
The Creator–Creature Relationship
Genesis establishes the immensity of God’s power. It positions God not merely as an esoteric creator, but as the sovereign Lord of the universe who makes things out of nothing simply by the word of his power. Genesis establishes the relationship between God and man, ratifying man’s role as recipient of God’s mercy and as one accountable to his lordship. Genesis establishes mankind as a dependent, a creation that depends vitally on its creator for sustenance and life.
What combats the perceived triviality of the gospel among unbelievers is understanding that following Christ represents not one option among many equally fulfilling and viable worldview choices, but rather as the only choice of a creation recognizing the power and lordship of the creator.
Evangelism in the Shadow of God’s Immensity
So, in our evangelism, as we seek to help those apart from Christ recognize the source of the angst and the depth of their brokenness, we do so in a context of the immense lordship of God over his creation. The gospel message demonstrates that the sovereign power of God doesn’t stand in juxtaposition to his gracious offer of salvation. God created for a good purpose and the cross redeems mankind back to rightly ordered life and worship. We present the gospel not simply as the means of greatest personal fulfillment, but as the only pathway for cosmic fulfillment. Only lives redeemed from the brokenness of sin can be restored to worship and relationship. Only lives that recognize God as sovereign creator and mighty God can experience the liberation from sin and the emptiness it brings.
The mechanism of our evangelism doesn’t change. Following the example of Christ and the ministry of Paul, we seek to expose the emptiness of lost humanity and offer Jesus as the living water that satisfies the thirsty and the bread of life that feeds the eternally hungry. But all of this comes in the context of a creation that must, and one day will, bow in humble recognition of God’s eternal power.
“We present the gospel not simply as the means of greatest personal fulfillment, but as the only pathway for cosmic fulfillment. Only lives redeemed from the brokenness of sin can be restored to worship and relationship.”
One day we’ll bow, recognizing the cosmic power of the God who created all things. Until then, let the immensity of God recalibrate your heart to dependent and holistic worship. And as we see freshly the power and plan of God for creation, be renewed in your desire to introduce the lost to the God who made them in love and who, in love, redeems them to himself.
[1] A.W. Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperCollins, 1978), 1.
[2] John R. W. Stott, The Message of Acts (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 290.
[3] Gavin Ortlund, “The Approach,” The Gospel After Christendom, Collin Hansen, Skyler Flowers, and Ivan Mesa, eds. (Zondervan Reflective: Grand Rapids, 2025), 111.