Loving the Creator of Creation
Passage: Gen 1; 3; Col 1; Rom 8; Rev 21
Date: March 7, 2023
As we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, our priorities and concerns shift. One area that will shift is how we view the rest of God's creation (i.e., our planet, environmental issues, animal life, etc). To understand this, we must be reminded of the four-fold epochs of Scripture’s overall plot.
(1) Creation: God was brimming with joy and pride as he methodically and artistically created the whole world (Gen 1.31). In fact, it says that everything was created by, through, and for Jesus (Col 1.15-16). Therefore, the way God created creation shows how much God cares deeply for it. But what's surprising that we often take for granted is that God entrusted his majestic handiwork to humans! Humans have been called to reign and rule over the rest of God's beautiful creation.
(2) Fall: Because of our sin (more specifically, Adam's sin), there is a cascading effect. The consequences of sin are not only relevant to humans but to all those whom humans represent. In this case, the rest of creation also is impacted by our sin. This is why one of the curses on Adam was a curse to the ground (Gen 3.17). Later we see Paul writing about how all of creation is groaning because it has been subjected to its state of futility because of our sin (Rom 8.20-22). This explains why creation is in the state that it is in. All the natural disasters, pollution, animal abuse, etc. were not the way God initially created the world. These are all the results of humanity's sin. Thus, we as humans have rebelliously and disrespectfully trashed God's prized creation that he graciously entrusted to us.
(3) Redemption: As stressed repeatedly at Uptown, the gospel of Christ redeems every aspect that sin has defiled. This includes creation! During Easter, we talked about the stages of Christ's resurrection as the firstfruits (1 Cor 15.20-23). The fourth stage of the resurrection is actually his creation! So part of the gospel of Christ is that he redeems even creation.
(4) Consummation: It is when Christ comes back that he will make all things new, including the new earth (and the new heavens) (Rev 21.1, 5). This is exactly how the Bible ends. So the Bible begins with an account of original creation and ends with the hope of new creation.
The bulk of this sermon, however, will be focused on how this is relevant to our identity in Christ. As we've emphasized at Uptown, we want to grow exclusively in Christ. But if we grow in Christ, then we begin to care about the things that he cares about. Since creation is something that he does care about (he created it by, through, and for himself with great pride and joy), then we ought to care about creation as well. Ergo, we care about creation not primarily because our efforts will make a profound difference or because society pressures us. We care about creation as our way of honoring and loving Christ. This is the same motivation that we must have for everything else in life.
