Creation: What Is The Gospel? – Part 2

Well, I am extremely excited for this morning’s service.

There are so many exciting things going on this morning, but more exciting than anything for me is that we are continuing on in our new series called “What Is The Gospel?”

I genuinely think this is the most important series we have ever done in my five years here at Mount Zion so far, and this series will be the most important series we ever do here together.

If you were here last week, you might remember that we talked about the fact that the gospel is the heart of the Christian faith.

The gospel is the heart of the story that the Bible tells.

And the gospel is the central truth at the core of our lives as followers of Jesus.

We are here today because of the gospel.

We are redeemed and bound for an eternity with God because of the gospel.

We have been forgiven fully and freely and forever of our sin because of the gospel.

And one day all things will be made right again, our universe will be wholly restored to the goodness God created it for again, every tear will be wiped away, all sadness and grief and injustice and suffering will end—to quote JRR Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings novels, “Every sad thing will come untrue”—because of the gospel, and only because of the gospel.

In other words, our lives as individual followers of Jesus, and our life together as the church, as the people of God, as members of God’s family and citizens of God’s Kingdom, is built on and rooted in and driven by the gospel.

Which means that the most important thing in the world for us is to get a solid grasp of the gospel.

The absolute most important thing that we can ever do is to wrap our heads and our hearts around the gospel.

And so we are spending the next several weeks doing exactly that.

By the end of this series we don’t want there to be a single person in this church left without a deep and rich and satisfying understanding of the gospel that transforms us from the inside out and fundamentally changes the way that we see and think about everything else in our lives and in the world.

Because that is the power of the gospel.

And as we trek through this series, we’re going to look more closely at this gospel message than we ever have before.

God Saves Sinners

Now, if you were here last week, you might remember that as we opened up God’s Word, we found that the Gospel itself is actually very simple.

The heart of the gospel message isn’t complex.

It’s not sophisticated. It’s not difficult to understand, but it’s very difficult to accept.

Because the heart of the Gospel is that “God saves sinners.”

Remember that?

Every other religion in the world tells us that we have to save ourselves.

Every other philosophy or ideology in the world tells us that we have to make ourselves better, we have to clean ourselves up, we have to make ourselves worthy of the gods if we want to enjoy eternal bliss.

That if we want salvation or enlightenment or blessing or reward, we have to change ourselves to make ourselves worthy.

Which creates this really serious problem, which is that we have this brokenness inside us, and the result is that we can never make ourselves good enough, we can never clean ourselves up enough, we can never optimize our ourselves enough to be good enough to get up on top of that mountain where the gods dwell.

But that is not the way it goes with Jesus.

No. The gospel of Jesus Christ tells us that instead of demanding that we clean ourselves up, fix our lives, and then go talk to Him, God came down to earth.

He came down the mountain.

He came down to us and said, “I’ll bear that weight for you.”

He took our sin onto himself, and he went to the cross in our place, and he wiped our slates clean.

He was sacrificed for us, and he purchased our salvation.

Instead of saying, “Fix your life so you can save yourself,” He says, “I’m gonna come save you, and then I’m gonna help you fix your life.”

He flips the order on its head.

The heart of the Gospel is that “God saves sinners.”

And so there’s this catchphrase that we repeated several times together last week to really burn this glorious reality deep down in our heads and our hearts, and I want to repeat it together again this morning.

We said the gospel isn’t something we do for God, the Gospel is something God has done for us.

Let’s say that together real quick, ready?

The Gospel isn’t something we do for God, the Gospel is something God has done for us.

That’s right.

Where Did We Come From?

But in order to fully grasp the depths and the width and the richness of the gospel that saves us, we need more than just that 30,000 foot view we got last week.

We want to zoom in close and get our hands around every moving part within this gospel message and gospel story.

And in order to do that, we want to start at the beginning.

We want to start at the beginning of the gospel message.

We want to focus on the beginning—before there was sin, before there was suffering, before the world was broken, before we were separated from God and condemned by our sin and rebellion.

We want to spend this morning setting up the gospel message by asking the question, “Where did we come from?”

Have you ever asked yourself that question before?

Where did we come from?

Where did I come from?

Why am I here?

Why was I created?

What do I exist for?

What is my purpose?

The gospel has an answer for all of those questions.

So we want to tackle those questions in light of the gospel.

We want to open up God’s word and ask the question, “Where did we come from?”

The Gospel Begins with God

And when we do that, what we learn is that the Gospel begins with God.

You know what I’m talking about?

The Gospel begins with God.

When we look at what God has said about Himself, we see that in the beginning God created the world—and it was good, because He is good.

Know what I’m talking about?

In the beginning, God created the world good.

The way that I like to put it is that a good God created a good world full of good things for His good purpose.

I love the way Genesis one puts this. It says:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . . God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
—Genesis 1:1, 31

Listen to that. God creates the world—and the world is good, because its Creator is good.

Have you ever thought about that before?

The world is good because its Creator is good.

There’s a lot of people out there who think “Heaven good, earth bad.”

Ever heard that before?

They think, “God good, humans bad.”

They think, “Spiritual things good, material things, physical things, organic things bad.”

They think our souls are good but our bodies are bad, and that if we could just get away from these bodies, if we could just get away from this earth, if we could just get away from this physical world, then we’d be fine because we wouldn’t be hindered by our physical body and our physical world anymore.

But that is not what God’s Word says.

No. God created the world good.

And he couldn’t have created it not good, because He Himself is good.

The goodness of the world reflects the goodness of God’s divine nature.

When God created, His creation was good. In fact, it was very good.

God Created the World in Joy and for Joy

The way that I like to put this is that God created the world in joy and for joy.

Have you ever thought about that before?

God created the world in joy and for joy.

I love the way that David puts this in Psalm 19. He says:

“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.”
—Psalm 19:1–4

Listen to that.

Creation itself rejoices with the God who created it.

Have you ever thought about that before?

Creation itself celebrates, rejoices, cheers, applauds—Isaiah 55 says “the trees of the field clap their hands” at the sound of God’s name—all of creation is rejoicing in its Creator God.

The environment around you is actually worshiping the Lord alongside you.

It’s not inanimate. It’s not just an object. It’s a fellow worshipper.

A lot of people out there worship creation and worship the environment, but the environment doesn’t want to be worshipped, the environment wants you to join it in worship.

The tree in your front yard is worshiping Yahweh.

And part of why that is true is because God imprinted creation with his joyful character.

It brought the Lord joy to create all things.

It brought God pleasure to create all things.

He didn’t just create the world because he had to. He didn’t just kind of begrudgingly sigh and say, “I guess I’ll make a world so I won’t be bored anymore.”

No. God wasn’t bored. He wasn’t lonely. He didn’t need something to do. God was joyful.

God has been supremely joyful, perfectly joyful, inexpressibly joyful and happy and content all the way into eternity past.

He wasn’t lacking anything. He wasn’t missing anything. He didn’t need anything.

What He had was this never-ending and perfect and wholly complete and glorious joy and satisfaction, and He created so that he could multiply that joy and satisfaction and contentment and happiness into other creatures beyond himself.

He was joyful all the way into eternity past and he wanted to share that joy, so he created all things in order to share his joy with everything.

And because that is true, you see the echo of God’s creative joy in every blade of grass.

Every particle in the universe.

Creation declares the glory of God.

God created all things in joy and for joy.

Created in God’s Image

And in the midst of all of this, He creates us.

I once again love the way that Genesis one words this. Because as God is creating humanity, Genesis one says:

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them.”
—Genesis 1:27–28

Now, there’s a few very important things we should notice in those two verses.

Because what these verse just told us is that God created us in His own image with an infinite and immeasurable value and worth.

Now, we’ve talked a little bit about this before, but to be created in God’s image doesn’t mean we literally look like God.

God is Spirit. He doesn’t look like anything.

Being in God’s image has nothing to do with what you look like.

It has nothing to do with whether you are male or female.

It has nothing to do with how smart you are, or your cognitive abilities.

No. If you are a human being, you are in God’s image.

From the time you are conceived through the time they lay you in the tomb, you bear God’s image.

And because you bear God’s image, God created you with an infinite and immeasurable value and worth.

You don’t have to do anything to have value in God’s eyes.

You don’t have to be great to have worth in God’s eyes.

You don’t have to be impressive, you don’t have to accomplish great things, you don’t have to make yourself useful, you don’t have to become important to have value and worth in God’s eyes—because he has permanently and irrevocably stamped you with an immeasurable value and worth that absolutely no one can take away from you.

It doesn’t matter what your parents said about you.

It doesn’t matter what your teachers said about you.

It doesn’t matter what the guidance counselors at school who told you that you’d never amount to anything said about you.

It doesn’t matter what your angry stepdad who said you were trash said about you.

It doesn’t matter what your abusive ex said about you.

It doesn’t matter what anyone anywhere thinks about you, ever, because God has said that you are immeasurably valuable and you have an infinite and eternal worth.

That’s the truth about you.

But it’s also the truth about everybody else in the universe.

Not just of people who look like you, think like you, act like you.

No. It’s also true of people who are totally different from you.

It’s true of people you think of as your enemy. It’s true of people you think of as your opponent.

It’s true people regardless of what they’ve done.

It’s not just true of a good, upright, upstanding, God fearing people who do what’s right. It’s also true of death row inmates. It’s true of people who’ve done things so horrible you can’t even say it out loud.

It’s not just true of people who are easy to love, easy to get along with. It’s true of people who are extremely difficult to love. Difficult to even tolerate.

It’s not just true of people that our society has deemed worthy. It’s true even of people that our society routinely devalues and discriminates against.

The gospel begins with the fact that a good God created a good world full of good things for His good purpose so he could share His eternal joy with His creation, and towards that end He created us in His own image with an infinite and immeasurable value and worth.

A World That Is Useful and Enjoyable

And after creating us, He placed us into a world that is both useful and enjoyable.

I know that’s a strange distinction to make, but bear with me.

God made this world to be both useful and enjoyable.

That’s part of what we mean when we say that this world is good.

Genesis says that the fruit in the garden was both “good for food” and “pleasing to the eye.”

It’s both useful and enjoyable, and the same thing that was true about the fruit was true about everything else in creation.

God created the world to be useful and enjoyable.

I love the way Paul puts this in one of his letters to Timothy. He says:

“Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”
—1 Timothy 4:4

We see the goodness of God’s creative power in the fact that He created everything to be useful in some way.

Useful for something.

Useful to accomplish some good thing.

And He created us to find out what those uses are.

As humans, we were created to work the earth—grow things, discover agriculture, create technology—to take this newly created world from being a mostly barren wasteland into a fruitful and glorious paradise.

He created us to explore this world, and to advance this world, and to improve this world.

So, for example, when we create new technology that makes life easier, we are following exactly what God created us to do.

When we create new medicines that make previously severe illnesses become treatable, we are doing exactly what God put us here to do.

When we find new ways to organize society, or the economy, or other things like that that make life better for everybody, we are doing exactly what God created us to do.

We’re innovating.

We are creating.

We are improving the world.

And things aren’t perfect by any means, but they really are better than they were in the past, and they can become even better in the future—and that’s part of the goodness of God’s creation.

This is what theologians refer to as “common grace.”

Even though our world is fallen and broken, the goodness of God’s creative work enables us to do really remarkable things in this useful and enjoyable world that God has made.

God Created the World to Be Enjoyable

Which brings us directly to that second word: Enjoyable.

God created the world to be enjoyable.

God created the world for us to enjoy it.

Maybe that’s obvious to you, or maybe that’s like a light bulb going off for you, but God created this world for us to enjoy it.

He wants us to enjoy the world.

He wants us to enjoy his creation.

And He created the world in such a way that when we use the world rightly, then it is beautifully, profoundly, gloriously enjoyable.

Food was created by God so that you can eat it and enjoy it.

Work was created by God so that you can enjoy accomplishing something good and important.

Sex was created by God—not only so that we could create new humans, but so that we could have a good time while we’re doing it.

God gave us minds that can invent new ways to enjoy ourselves—we can invent games, we can invent stories, we can invent fun things.

Like, at some point, some early humans realized they could pick up a rock and throw it, and the other person can go and catch it and then throw it back, and that it’s fun.

Right?

They created a game. They created a way to have fun.

That’s on purpose. That’s what God wants us to do.

We could list things off all day, but the point is very simple: God created the world to be enjoyable, and He created us to enjoy this world.

Enjoying God by Enjoying His World

And all of this matters deeply, because God created us to enjoy Him by enjoying the world that He made.

You see where we’re going with this?

God created us to enjoy him by enjoying the world that He made.

When we innovate, we are worshipping—whether we realize it or not.

When we improve our community, or our world, we are worshipping.

When we enjoy the good things God has placed in this world for us to enjoy, we are worshipping.

When you make a really good meal, you’re worshiping.

When you create children, you’re worshiping.

When you have a good time in the process of creating children, that is also worshiping.

When you do good work at your business or vocation that helps people, that is worshiping.

When you enjoy the beauty of nature, you are worshipping the God who created nature.

When you get to know the people in your surrounding community, and you start to see them as they are, you start to care about them and become enmeshed in their lives, you are worshiping.

God created this world to be both useful and enjoyable, and we worship the Lord when we use and enjoy this world that he’s made.

Shalom

And the word that the Bible uses to describe all of this is shalom.

Ever heard the word shalom before?

Shalom is the word that the Bible uses to describe the glory of God’s original creation.

And God created us for Shalom.

In the beginning, we lived in the glorious Shalom of God.

And we were meant to spend eternity basking in this Shalom together with the Lord and with each other.

That is the fundamental takeaway that we should get from all this.

We were created to spend eternity enjoying this glorious Shalom together with the Lord and each other.

We were not meant to be born into a world of suffering and injustice and grief and oppression.

We were meant to spend forever glorying in the joy of the Lord and enjoying his world.

Homesick for the Beginning

And because that is true, we can still see hints of that original goodness everywhere.

Can’t we?

We can still see glimmers of that original goodness everywhere.

Even if you don’t believe any of the stuff I have said over the past 30 or 40 minutes, the fact is that you can still see those hints of God’s good creation if you really open your eyes and allow yourself to be honest with yourself.

Because we catch glimmers of God’s good creation when we get homesick for a place we’ve never been.

You know what I’m talking about?

As humans, we have this thing where we get homesick for a time we’ve never experienced.

Homesick for life we’ve never experienced.

Homesick for a place we’ve never been to.

And when we feel that kind of spiritual homesickness, the thing that we’re homesick for is the beginning.

The thing we’re homesick for is God’s original creation, before everything went wrong.

Somewhere deep in our souls, we remember.

Know what I’m talking about?

We remember the original goodness that we came from.

The memory’s not gone.

It’s just buried, like a repressed memory.

We still remember the original goodness we came from.

And we long for it.

Case-in-point: When there’s a terrible tragedy, we know deep within ourselves that this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

When we watch children die of cancer, we know deep within ourselves that this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

Whenever we watch good people wither under the weight of disease, we know deep down within ourselves this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

When people we care about are ripped away from us in an accident, we know deep down within ourselves that this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

When people we trust betray us or abandon us, we know deep down within ourselves that this is not the way it’s supposed to be.

We know life is not supposed to be like this.

And when we feel those uncontrollable feelings that “This is not how it’s supposed to be,” what we’re feeling is homesickness for a place we’ve never been, for a life we’ve never lived, for a time we never experienced—we are homesick for the beginning.

Because even though all we’ve ever experienced is brokenness, our souls still long for that goodness we were created for.

We catch glimmers of God’s good creation when we get homesick for a place we’ve never been.

Where Can I See the Beauty of God’s Creation?

Now, next week, we’re going to learn about what went wrong. We’re going to learn about the Fall.

And then after that, we’re going to learn about how God poured himself out to redeem us from the Fall through the cross.

And then after that we’re going to learn about how the Lord is going to finish the job one day by making everything good again.

And we’re gonna learn about how we can be made right too, by grace through faith, when we throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus.

But before we can wrap our heads around all of that, we have to fully grasp the richness of God’s good creation and design.

We want to meditate on the goodness of God’s creation in the beginning.

And so the question that we need to ask ourselves as we meditate on the goodness of God’s creation is, “Where can I see the beauty of God’s creation shining through the darkness of our world?”

Where can I still see shadows of God’s good created design?

Where can I still see the goodness of creation even amidst the thick fog that the Fall has left?

Where can I still see God’s beautiful design at work even amidst the brokenness of our world?

We’re gonna talk about the bad news next week, but first we want to awaken our souls to a kind of genuine awe at God’s glorious creative work in His world.

Instead of just getting caught up in the brokenness of our world since the Fall, ask the Lord to open your eyes to His glorious design, and ask yourself, “Where can I see the beauty of God’s creation shining through the darkness of our world?”

And then watch the way He transforms your perspective about absolutely everything through it.

Let’s join together in prayer.