Called Out For God’s Mission #2
#2: People Who Care For God’s Creation
Rev. Charles Lee
1. WHY THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN MISSION AND CREATION CARE?
a. Insufficient Soteriology: “Salvation is about going to heaven when we die”
i. neos (= brand new) vs. kainos (= restored anew)
ii. “…according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:13)
b. Inadequate Anthropology: “What we really need to focus on is saving souls”
i. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:23)
ii. “Flesh” (sarx) vs. “Body” (soma)
c. Inadequate Missiology: “Our mission should be about evangelism, discipleship and church planting”
i. Three focal points of missional engagement:
d. Incomplete Bibliology: “The Bible is about sinners being forgiven”
i. Creation—Fall—Redemption—Consummation
2. WHY IS CREATION CARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF OUR MISSION AS GOD’S PEOPLE?
a. Creation care is God’s very first command to us.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26-28)
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 2:15)
“The earth is the property of God we claim to love and obey. We care for the earth, most simply, because it belongs to the one whom we call Lord.” (Cape Town Commitment)
b. Creation care is done in anticipation of the full redemption in the new creation.
For the creation waits with eager longing 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 be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:19-22)