A Quest for More: Chapter Three

Part Four of our Book Study on A Quest for More by Paul David Tripp.

Chapter Three: A Total Disaster

BIG IDEA:

"As his child, when you get up in the morning you awake to a huge kingdom. It courses back through history and extends to before the foundations of the world were set in place. It extends forward in time to endless eternity. It encompasses every location known and unknown, every situation of every kind, every person and every created thing. The goal of this kingdom is the complete restoration of every last thing that was damaged by the fall. You must no longer live for yourself. Grace has led you through the door to something more and better. Grace calls you to shape your living to the contours of this amazing work of restoration." (page 45).

BASIC OUTLINE:

• The Fall ruined everything: "What happened in the garden is truly the central catastrophe of human history. It is almost impossible to overstate the hugeness of its significance Here is how big this disaster was (and is) When Adam and Eve fell, the entire cosmos fell with them!" (page 38)
  

• God's original design was gloriously transcendent and cruciform: "People lived in joyful, unafraid, and unashamed community with one another..." and "People lived in heartfelt, loving, obedient worship of God. They worshipped the Creator and managed creation; they didn't give into worshipping creation and trying to manage the Creator" (pp. 38-39).
  

• The present result of the fall is not submission to God and service to others, but the pursuit of self-rule and self-service: "The quest for autonomy will always crush transcendence...Since that horrible moment in the garden, every human being has tended to confuse autonomy with transcendence. The inertia of sin is always away from the Creator and toward ourselves. And let it be known that this is not only the struggle of the unbeliever; it is the struggle of the believer as well. As long as sin still dwells in our hearts, autonomy will war with transcendence" (page 42).
  

• "Because of this there are two things that I must always keep in view: [#1] The ongoing tendency to treat my life as if it were no bigger than my life...Most of us have learned how to celebrate our inclusion in God's great and glorious work, while functionally caring for little that does not directly address us. In doing this we have Christianized our autonomy....even though we are trying to live inside of God's boundaries, we have still manufactured a life where self is at the center." and #2 "We must keep in mind that the fall was a total disaster...it is only when you remember how big the effects of sin are that you will live the way God calls you to live. Here is the logic of living in light of the purposes of God: if sin's devastation is as wide as creation, then the scope of redemption must be just as big. Therefore, we are called to live with the total restoration of creation in view" (pp. 43-44).
  

SOME FAVORITE (and convicting!) QUOTES:

"We get so excited about the personal benefits of redemption that we lost sight of redemption that we lose sight of redemption's greater goal. Yes, the personal benefits of redemption are an amazing thing, worthy of eternal celebration. But redemption's agenda is not to make our kingdoms successful, but to welcome us to a much bigger, much better kingdom" (page 46).

"Many of you...have settled into a self-focused enjoyment of the good life. You are enjoying what grace has done to your marriage, your partnering, your friendships, and your work life. It has been all too easy for you to miss the point that you were rescued from what was very bad--not just to be part of something good, but amazingly, to be part of something very great." (page 46).