By Brian Koonce
Staff Writer
RAYTOWN – Andy Chambers, who is used to dealing with exams as professor of Bible and vice president for student development at Missouri Baptist University, gave messengers a much easier, three-question quiz during the theme interpretation/Bible study at the 175th annual meeting of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) here at First Baptist Church:
1. How big is God?
2. How small are we?
3. What should our response be?
Chambers used Psalm 90 to expand on the theme of the annual meeting, “From Everlasting to Everlasting.” The Psalm, attributed to Moses, begins: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
“This passage begins with God, not with us,’ Chambers said. “We must start with God if we’re going to put our 175-year history in perspective. It is God who is our everlasting, sovereign, faithful, perfect king. How big is God? God is really, really big.”
Verses 2-10 contrast God’s “bigness” with Man’s insignificance. Or as Chambers put it, “How big is man compared to God? Really, really small.” Verse 3 says “You turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’”
“Under the Fall, life literally crushes us until we return to the dust from which we were made,” Chambers said. “I look at God and I look at us. We are so momentary. One hundred and seventy five years is a long time to be an association of churches, or is it? Compared to God, this convention is just a blink in eternity.”
Chambers said the final seven verses of the Psalm answers the question of what should man’s response be to His bigness and our smallness.
“The challenge before us as we go back to our lives and attempt to do Kingdom work is this,” he said. “Fear God, seek His wisdom for the future, know that there is always hope in His unfailing love and finally, trust Him to establish the works of our hands.”
Chambers ended with a challenge to the churches and individual believers that make up the MBC.
“Live each moment as if it were significant in the light of eternity,” he said.