The Author Of A New Creation (Various Scriptures)

Creation Was Declared Good in Genesis

You know, as I get going sometimes, I can preach for an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. I think one time it was an hour and 45. That was on Good Friday. And on a day when a hurricane is coming through, you might be wondering, gosh, was it an act of faith to come here today?

What we decided to do was just a little bit of a shorter service, just in case the wind started whipping up or if driving was a little bit more difficult. And in God's sweet providence, we're talking about creation and we're talking about the fall.

Next week in John 9, we're going to pick up this theme because that's where we're at in John 9. We're going to pick up this idea of new creation, but this week we're going to do a little bit of a primer into what creation looks like holistically, biblically.

So I think as a starting point, I don't actually have to remind anyone that our world that we live in is fallen. That while we crave perfection, we live in a world that is full of disruption. Adultery, anger, arrogance, bitterness, blasphemy, boasting, brutality, that's just until you get to the letter B.

I don't have to continue on. We know that the world is desperately perverted with sin. That it extends down into the deepest recesses of this world. It's the air that we breathe. It's the relationships that we have.

Every facet of our life has been perverted by sin. What we often don't think about though is how the earth has been affected by the fall. How the dirt, the trees, the oceans, all of creation has also suffered because of human beings' sin.

So what I want us to look at today is what does the Bible say about creation? What does the Bible say about how the fall of man has impacted and affected the earth, the oceans, the skies, and everything in that way?

And then what I want us to also look at in the end is how Christ himself is going to redeem not just us, but all of creation. So let's begin with prayer. Lord, thank you so much for the fact that your gospel is a full and rich and beautiful gospel and that, Lord, you didn't just come down to rescue us out of creation.

You came to rescue us for a new creation, for a life with you on a new redeemed earth that you yourself, Lord, have redeemed. Lord, I pray that as we think about hurricanes and wind and rain and all of these things that, Lord, are temporary examples of the fall, that, Lord, we would also have a sort of hope that looks forward to the day when everything has been made new in Christ.

In Jesus' name, amen. So as we think about creation, we're going to start with the fact that creation was created good, originally. Seven times in the first chapter of Genesis, it says something was good.

God declared something good. He said that light was good, dry land and seas are good, plant life's good, sun, moon, and stars are good, bird and fish multiplying in their respective realms are good, animals that inhabited the earth are good, and the special creation that he made on the sixth day, humans to be vice regents, sharing with him and extending the reign of Christ to the ends of the earth.

He doesn't just call good. He calls them very good. The earth was made to be an incredible place full of human beings who worshiped and praised their Lord. Trees were supposed to just naturally supply the most incredibly tasting fruit.

The sun was not designed to give us sunburns and heat strokes. Snakes were not designed originally to bite you, at least that's my opinion on the matter, and calories were not designed to haunt you when you enter into your mid-thirties.

Not that that's relevant to anyone here. The first couple was given a great gift that they were supposed to steward and they were supposed to look after and they were supposed to, it says they were supposed to toil and they were supposed to cultivate and they were supposed to care for the garden.

And with great responsibility also comes the idea of a great and mighty downfall whenever they fall short of that and that is exactly what happened. As they sinned, as they fell, creation actually fell with them so that it suffers the effects of the fall as well.

The Curse of the Fall on the Whole Creation

Now it's not clear at all whether Adam or Eve understood the entire effect that was going to happen whenever they fell into sin. Maybe they didn't believe that God was as serious as he said he was. Maybe they didn't believe that God was actually going to do what he said he was going to do, that in the day that you eat of that particular tree that you're going to die.

Maybe they thought, like some of us think, that the serpent was going to take care of them and if they could just align themselves with him then maybe he would care for them and guard them or maybe they felt like that God was just going to take them out behind the woodshed, give them a good beating and put them back in the garden so that they would never forget it and never make the mistake again.

Maybe they did not understand the magnitude of what was actually going to happen to them in the fall. We don't know. I think though as human beings have this acute ability to think in very narrow ways, think only about ourselves, think only about what our needs are, I think it's possible that they didn't understand the total effect that the fall was going to have upon this world.

I think it's possible that they didn't realize that light was now going to be turned as a weapon against them so that, like I said earlier, their sun burns, they get freckles, they get skin cancer. I was out in the deserts of Iraq, excuse me, early on in the war in 2003 and I was doing my job, I was drinking water and all of a sudden I pass out because of heat exhaustion.

That wouldn't have happened in a pre-fall world. Cells misfiring because of too much exposure to the sun, that wouldn't have happened in a pre-fall world. I don't think they understood how deep the effects of the fall were going to go.

I don't think they understood that dry land, that was the thing that God called good on the second day, was going to experience famines and droughts and earthquakes and mineral depletion so that farmers couldn't actually get enough food for their communities.

I don't think they realized just how deep the effects of the fall were going to run. I don't think they realized that seas that God called very good in day three are going to be cursed and that underground tectonic plates would shift and volcanoes under the surface of the water would erupt and you would have tidal waves and tsunamis and water spouts and you would have hurricanes in New England.

First one in 30 years. I don't think they realized how deep the effects of the fall were going to go. They didn't understand that plant life was going to be subjected to the curse of the fall so that thorns and thistles and weeds and kudzu, have you ever, do you know what kudzu is?

In the south you can have just a single root of kudzu and then the next day it's taken over everything. It's a real example of a fall. They didn't realize that rotten food was going to come from trees.

They didn't realize that diseases were going to come from, that were going to infect the roots of the soil. They didn't realize that even berries are going to be poisoned. All of these things happen because of the result of the fall.

They didn't realize that birds and fish were going to attack one another and eat one another's carcasses. They didn't realize that mosquitoes would be unleashed upon the world. You talk about an effect of the fall, these unholy flying vampires that will suck the life out of you.

You know what I'm talking about. I tell my daughters that they bite them more than they bite me because they're sweeter than me. I think that's scientific. They didn't realize that animals were going to suffer.

They didn't realize that human beings were going to be filled with disease, old age, wrinkles, scars, backaches, memory loss, high cholesterol, and everything that's gone wrong in the world. They didn't realize that one decision to rebel against the holy God was going to unleash a tidal wave of consequences upon them and upon their progeny and upon generation after generation after generation.

They didn't realize that even rule and dominion would be perverted. So that instead of people gathering together in communities to worship God, you have people gathering together in communities to wage war on other nations so that you have bloodshed, you have brokenness.

They didn't realize that companies were going to form, and this is not a statement on vaccines, but give us medicines that would cause more issues than they actually cure. If you think about every facet of our life has been lived in a fallen world, Paul even describes this.

Creation Groans for Redemption in Romans 8

He uses personification, which is attributing personhood or person-like attributes to creation when he says in Romans 8, 19 through 23, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

And if we stop in verse 18, we think, absolutely true, I don't consider that my sufferings right now are worthy to be compared to the glory that's going to be revealed in the day of Christ. But Paul doesn't stop with the suffering that you and I face.

He goes on, he says, for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption and to the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body for in hope we have been saved.

But hope is not that is not seen or that is seen is not hope for he who hopes for what he already sees is not hope. But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we wait eagerly for it. Paul is saying that all of creation has experienced the fall.

The land, the skies, the oceans, the mountain, the trees, the animals, the birds, the flesh, every facet of it is under this bitter curse of the fall and it's groaning under the weight of it. Now, there's many people who will try to give you answers as to what is going to heal the world.

You've got Green New Deals and environmentalism and hippies hugging trees in the middle of the Northern California forest, I'm just being funny. Maybe they actually do, I don't know. But the only answer to creation's calamity is not environmentalism, which is based on an idolatrous notion that if we worship creation hard enough and long enough and passionately enough then we can heal creation.

The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what's going to heal us and that's what's going to heal all of creation. This gospel begins unfolding in John chapter 1 verse 1 through 3 where it says, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

He was in the beginning with God and all things came into being through him and apart from him nothing came into being which has come into being. What I want you to understand here is that the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us a massive clue as to what Jesus Christ is going to do.

Because Jesus is not a passive observer of creation, he's the author of creation. It says that he was in the beginning with God, that he was God, and that nothing that exists in this world exists apart from him.

Colossians 1 .16 goes even a step further and says that not only does nothing exist but through him it exists for him which means that Jesus is going to get the glory in creation and Jesus who came to redeem us is not going to get the glory in a creation that stays broken but he's going to get the glory in a creation that is fully healed.

The one who shaped the stars, the one who knelt down in the dust and made man is the one who's going to bring healing to this broken creation. Now I want us to tackle an aspect of this topic that we don't often think about because we live in a very individualistic society.

We live in a society where we read the Bible and we say that Jesus came to save me and he came to heal me and we don't think about the holistic nature of what Jesus was doing when he came to save us. If he wanted to just save us from our sins and remove us from the world then he could have just came and he could have died as a sacrifice for sins but he didn't do that.

He came and he healed the sick, isn't that an interesting fact? He restored people from their leprosy, he cast out demons, he stopped a woman's blood disease, he gave sight to the blind, he told people to pick up their mat and walk, he is showing that he is triumphing and planning to heal creation.

He wouldn't have healed the sick if he didn't plan on healing the brokenness and the curse that has affected us all. He calmed storms with the word of his mouth, he multiplied food supernaturally, he walked on top of the waters, he had fish deliver shiny coins through their mouth just so that he could pay the temple tax, he had fig trees wither as an example of judgment, he turned water into wine instantly, he had fish leaping into nets so that it almost sank the disciples boats, Jesus is showing us that he has a commitment to heal creation.

He's not only triumphing over the human curse, he's not only triumphing over death's curse, he's also, or nature's curse, he's triumphing over death's curse. We must understand that Jesus does nothing unintentionally.

Three people in the gospels he raises from the dead, the daughter of Jairus, the widow's son and his friend Lazarus, and ultimately he raises himself from the dead, proclaiming that he has come to heal whatever is broken in this creation.

Think about this, Jesus was arrested in a garden, he was beaten like an animal that is stripped so that his people could be healed, it reminds us of the garden of Eden. He's left naked and ashamed like Adam, he's made to wear the sign of the curse upon his head, the crown of thorns, he's placed in a garden tomb, every facet of his ministry is about new creation.

He's bringing a new creation and he takes upon himself the curse of the old creation. His miracles point to it, his actions point to it, his sermons point to it, and his resurrection points to it. But Jesus is coming, not just to heal us from our sins, but to heal the entire creation.

Again, he healed the sick because eventually he's going to overthrow all disease. He healed the blind because he's going to overthrow all blindness. He healed the storms because hurricanes won't last forever.

What an awesome, awesome thought, and his resurrection begins it all. The Bible says that Jesus' resurrection makes him the first fruits of a new creation. What that means is that Jesus is the one who broke out of the earth, just like in the original creation it was plants that broke out of the earth on the third day, Jesus is that seed of a new creation that breaks out of the grave in the third day and he will bring us with him into new creation.

The New Heaven and New Earth in Revelation

It begins in Revelation 21 where all sickness and disease and pain and everything that's broken is going to be made new, where there's no more tears and no more medicine and no more fears. This is what it says.

This is John talking. He says, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away. There was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them. It's like the Garden of Eden, God dwelling with his people and they shall be in people and God himself will be among them and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death and there will no longer be any mourning or any crying or any pain.

The first things have passed away. And he who sits on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he said, Write these words for these words are faithful and true. Then he said to me, It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be my son.

But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and liars. They will be in the lake of fire. With brimstone, which is the second death, Jesus continues in Revelation 22.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal coming from the throne of God and the lamb in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, new creation.

You've got the Garden of Eden here in Revelation 22, except the original Garden of Eden was empty and this Garden of Eden is filled with the multiplied saints of God who have spread out to the ends of the earth.

You have the Garden of Eden of new creation. There will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the lamb will be in it and his bond servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.

There will no longer be any night and they will not have any need for a lamp or a light nor the light of the sun because the Lord God will illumine them and they will reign forever and ever. And he said to me, these words are faithful and true.

Hope for the Broken World and the Church's Witness

On a day like today, we see wind, we see hurricanes, we see water, we see pains in our life. We have broken relationships. We have estranged relationships of people that we love who we haven't spoken to in years because of the effects of brokenness in our relationship.

We have addictions. We have pains. We have, we have broken elements of our body that are soon going to cause us to die in a day like today. We are inundated with the effects of the curse, but on a day like today, we can celebrate the fact that we serve a God who's going to cure it all.

No more pain, no more brokenness, no more suffering, no more sorrow, no more tears. Heaven is going to be the culmination of the redemption of almighty God. And you and I, if we are in Christ, we're going to experience it.

My hope for us today, in a very short message, is that we would have hope and not discouragement. My hope for us today is that we would stop looking at American politics and we would stop looking at American civilization and all of the things that's going wrong and we would start looking to the fact that we serve a God who's going to heal all of this.

You see, because if we get caught up in how bad the world is going, we miss how good in fact the gospel truly is and we miss how good our God is and we miss how his glorious plan is working in such a way that's going to bring us into eternity.

If we miss that, we miss what Baxter caught, that my life is about the glory of God. Your life is about the glory of God. We exist to give him praise for our own joy and we exist in death to be with him.

My hope for each and every single one of us is that we would not look at the brokenness, but we would look to the broken Savior who is going to heal it all and that would give us hope and that would give us joy and that would cause our hearts to praise.

Let's pray. Lord, from the beginning to end, your word is about creation. It begins in a garden, it ends in a garden. It begins with you speaking, it ends with you speaking. It begins with you dwelling with human beings, it ends with you dwelling with human beings.

It begins with a tree, it ends with a tree. It begins with a river, it ends with a river. All of life is about your story of how you are going to make a creation for yourself with people who will glorify you.

Lord, I pray that we would be swept up into that. Lord, I pray that we would repent for the ways that we are inclined to grumble and complain and be frustrated and angry and feel like victims. When we serve you who is making all things new and will make all things new, Lord, I pray that you would empower us to be witnesses to the world.

Lord, I pray that you would empower us to be able to showcase the glory of Christ so that when people come to us, they would literally ask us, why are you so joyful? Because we know the living God. Lord, I pray that you would make my attitude and my countenance and my thoughts and my heart and my actions and my meditations, Lord, I pray that you would conform all of that to who you are in your word.

And Lord, I pray that as a church that we would be conformed to all of that because of who you revealed yourself to be. Lord, we can strive and we can try and a message like this can fall on dead ears and dead hearts because we are broken people and we cannot manufacture holiness.

It's the one thing that we can't replicate. Lord, would you breathe life into us? Would you breathe your spirit into us? And would you make us people who want to worship you and praise you and people who have hope even in the midst of trying circumstances?

It's in your name that we pray. Amen.