New Creation Sermon

When you look at the world, what do you see? frustration, money, brokenness, pain, suffering, . . .

But I believe God is in the business of new creation.

Galatians 6:12-16

In the Smoky Mountains where plants and trees were torn out in order to put down a winding asphalt road, soon plants and trees will bust through the stony ground. What once was bitumen will soon be lush re-growth and life. Who is behind this?

Genesis 1:2, 7

From everything being one jumbled up mess to being separated into different places and paths, God is the One who creates order from chaos.

Genesis 2:7-8, 15

The first gardener, Adam. The first vocation, blessing the earth. How'd Adam do? sin . . . chaos . . . flood--the separated waters went back to being jumbled up in the middle and destroying everything. Sin leads to chaos in creation. But God made a new world out of the destruction.

So then the second gardener, Noah, planted a vineyard in the new creation.

Genesis 9:20

How'd Noah do? sin . . . chaos . . .

Hosea 4:1-3

No acknowledgement of God . . . leads to bloodshed, etc., . . . leads to fish in the sea and birds of the air dying . . . order returns to chaos . . . what a mess

But there's a new gardener:

John 20:11-15

Jesus is the Cosmic Gardener:

God went to the center of creation, the most broken part, to heal it, to make it new again. He had to be all in all. (Ephesians 1:22-23)

For God to become all in all isn't easy. Bringing order from disorder isn't easy. Bringing life from death isn't natural. Healing creation isn't easy. God had to heal it from the inside out. The Son is the firstborn of all creation. Without him, none of creation can be reborn. (Colossians 1:15)

His healing begins in you:

Philippians 1:6, "I’m convinced that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it through to completion on the day of Christ Jesus."

There are four circles. In which one are you?

1. The world, the cosmos, is all good.
2. All is wrong with the world.
3. Through Jesus, God is redeeming the world, making it new. Jesus is my Savior.
4. God is sending you and me together into the world to be part of its healing, its being created anew, his will done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is the Lord of all.

I was in a mall recently, followed the signs to the men's toilets, and found a one stall room occupied and therefore full. I turned to rush to find new signs leading to new toilets. Just as I turned, there was another man going in to the one-stall room. I told him, "There's only one toilet and it's taken." He said, "That is ridiculous!" in a perturbed, frustrated voice. Sufficed to say he beat me to the new toilets. After washing my hands, I was in the fourth circle, so to speak, thankful and ready to do good works. But the man disgruntled at the one stall was drying his hands still with a sourpuss face as if the one-stall situation had ruined the goodness of the new and spacious men's room. He was still stuck in the second circle as if the world were wrong without any hope of redemption.

But I believe God is in the business of new creation. So, whatever truth there is to all four of these circles, I want to be in the fourth circle as much of the time as possible.