#343 TORN Series# 2, Cosmos

#343 TORN Series# 2, Cosmos
By Guest Speaker: Zach Sloane

Continuing TORN series… Let’s invite people to come hear how Jesus heals, restores and repairs and makes new.

RECAP- SIN IS THE PROBLEM, JESUS IS THE SOLUTION.

Sin is selfishness… It’s not acknowledging God’s proper worth and value, or the worth and value of others, or the world around us.
A misunderstanding of the problem leads to a misdiagnosis which in turn exacerbates the problem making it so much worse.

So this week, we are again going to look at the idea of TORN, but today instead of looking at a TORN relationship with God through the impact of sin, we are looking at the TORN KOSMOS. Or the TORN world.

The word cosmos is used 186 times. In the Greek its the word kósmos (literally, “something ordered“) – properly, an “ordered system” (like the universe, creation); the world. (Strongs #2889)

We are going to look at the tear in creation… in God’s universe, his ordered, created world.

Psalms 19:1-6
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Romans 1:20 “ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.”

The cosmos declares something about God. So much so that the philosophers and early scientists at the outset of the scientific revolution referred to nature as Gods second book. You have the bible and nature. The first use of the phrase is unknown. However, Galileo used the phrase, quoting Tertullian, when he wrote his Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, of how ” “We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.” (5) (5) Adversus Marcionem, I, 18..”

But what does it say when to looks horrible and dreadful? Deadly storms, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. And what about mosquitoes?

So we have a problem.. the world that God loves and created somehow has a tear in it. It became torn. It came to reflect something less than the picture of God that it was intended to paint.

God’s world and my living room. Messed up! Not according to design.

God is a good loving creator… he made a beautiful creation and then something happen. It was TORN. It started to resemble something other than what he had in mind. Jesus said it this way in the parable of the wheat and the tares. Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ Matthew 13:24-28b. There is an enemy that has sown tares in God’s field, in his creation.

In the Bible we have a few accounts of God creating the cosmos.

Both John and Paul tell us that Jesus was the one by who and for whom the world was made. The picture gets clearer with the progressive revelation of God. Colossians 1:16 tells us that “by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible.

And as we know God had a plan for his creation and part of this plan we see revealed in the book of Ephesians. The apostle Paul with great clarity and insight says that God’s plan from the very beginning, the mystery of his will was that made known to us, was that God, “has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Ephesians 1:9-10

To gather together all things in Christ. What fascinating statement. That the things of the earth .. not just the people, but things of the earth would be taken up in to Christ.

“Protestant theology goes wrong, he argues, when it teaches that the incarnation was an ad hoc counter-measure necessitated by sin.• From the very beginning God determined to take man into partnership with himself on the basis of the incarnation. But in order to have man as his covenant-partner, God must first create him. And in order to exist man must have a sphere of existence. Hence there is a reciprocal relationship between creation and covenant.
Colin Brown on Barth’s Church Dogmatics, III/1”^{[1]

[1] Colin Brown, Barth’s doctrine of Creation.}http://archive.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_076_2_Brown.pdf.

God sought partnership with humanity in a very specific relationship. A relationship the likes of which he would have with no other creation… as sons and daughters.

God creates humanity and drops them in a hostile world were talking snakes and fallen angels mingle together. He creates humans in His own image and likeness and gives them authority to rule planet earth with the commission to take the garden and its conditions and expand it across the whole of the Earth. He says be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1:28b

Adam and Eve were commissioned by God to export the condition of the garden to the rest of the Earth – to fill it and subbed and they were given the authority to do. But tragically as we heard last week, humans fell. They came under the authority and power of the very evil they were created to defeat and thus whatever was under their authority become subject to the power that they were now subjected to.. and we know this to be the devil.

They exchange the truth of God for a lie. When we humans believed the devil’s lies, they came under his influence, the influence of the one Jesus called the father of lies, (John 8:44)

2 Cor. 4:4 Satan is referred to as the “god of this world.”

Ephesians 2:2 talks about “the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.

I John 5:19 “We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” The whole world.. the whole cosmos – thats actually the word.

So is it surprising that we see devastation and violence in the world – even in the animal kingdom, that storms and hurricanes and natural disasters that kill happen. The fallen condition of humanity has become victimized and at odds with the very thing it was to subdue. And the devil that was to be evicted, solidified his grip on the natural world. His influence is seen everywhere.

The earth itself has turned on humanity. …”cursed is the ground because of you” — Genesis 3.

“otherwise the land will vomit you out for defiling it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.” — Leviticus 18:26-28

Because of our connection with the earth, what we do matters, how we treat it matters and it seems as though not only can God and the devil act upon the material universe but we ourselves can … it responds our state of being.

A more positive spin on this relationship between creation and humanity. Romans 8 :19-22 “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now….”

Creation is groaning… its in pains, waiting for a right relationship to be restored again. And this cosmos, this land, it will obtain freedom form bondage and decay when it again becomes under the influence not of the devil but of the children of God.

No amount of activism is going to solve the real problem. The earth is growing not so much for a carbon tax or a protest as much as it is according to the Bible anyway the manifestation of the sons and daughters of God… a RESTORED HUMANITY. The restoration of our planet and its redemption from pollution from all types… it lies in the hands of us, a restored people.

“God reached down for me.” He entered Stefan’s world .. his natural world.

God restores us…

When God goes about repairing the tear in creation he does so by first restoring humanity. And in the person go Jesus… when Jesus takes up a human and natural life… in the cosmos, not above it but in it, he shows us what a restored humanity looks like, what it looks like to live as the sons of God that the earth itself according to Paul is looking to see.

Romans 8:29ish God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

A couple ways that Jesus, as the intended shape of humanity, modelled for us what a human relationship with nature looks like.. what it looks like for nature to again come under the control of the sons and daughters of God.

1. He rebukes the devil’s activity in nature.

He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. Luke 4:39

The word for rebuke is this: epitimaó. And it means “to Censure or admonish; by implication, forbid — (straitly) charge, rebuke. Strongs #2008.

And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Matthew 17:18

Jesus rebukes the devil’s influence off of the natural order.

2. He restores personal dominion and order.

Like we saw in Stefan’s life… sometimes the natural substances have control of us instead of us using controlling them. John 2:10 wedding at Cana. “you have kept the good wine until now.”

Or Matthew 11:19 Jesus says to his accusers “the Son of man cam eating and drinking. And that word drinking’s literally to imbibe – to drink alcohol. But we know Jesus didn’t get out of control sloppy drunk. He maintained control, and natural substances didn’t rule him.

Another way that natural things can be used to bring us into bondage. When they are used in support of legalistic and religious systems that put limitations on things. Matthew 12:1-2 “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the sabbath; his disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 When the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the sabbath.”

Colossians 2:20-23 “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the universe,[k] why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations, 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch”? 22 All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings. 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.[l]”

3. He didn’t waste.

And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. Mathew 14:20. They took up what was left. Didn’t it leave it and waste. Good stewardship maximizes resources.

Psalms 104:14-15
He causes the grass to grow for the cattle,
And vegetation for the service of man,
That he may bring forth food from the earth,
And wine that makes glad the heart of man,
Oil to make his face shine,
And bread which strengthens man’s heart.

Creation being used to bless humanity. Yet how much of the destruction of the world, degradation of our ecosystem has to do with waste. Waste is inevitable – but hey – recycle- at least a bit – at least a bit more than you did before.

Recycle, reduce, reuse.

Jesus is serious about us looking after this planet. It is after all his future home. It is something that will be restored fully. Paul tells us that Jesus is actually being retained in Heaven waiting for the time of universal restoration.

Acts 3:20-21 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) repent “so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah[a] appointed for you, that is, Jesus, 21 who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

What does universal restoration look like? What are some clues the prophets gave us? One example.

Isaiah 11:6-9 says

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Because the knowable of the glory of the Lord will cover that earth as the waters the sea… no violence will be done. The animal king itself transformed.

What would your house, your home look like? These questions are not about bondage.. about making is bound by a creepy sense of obligation. We don’t want to make a new law called environmentalism or “good stewardship” but an invitation to again value the world, its role, and our role in it and care for it the way God does. If sin is selfishness, it’s about being aware of the value of the people and the world around you. I love the MSG bible, it translates the fruit of the holy spirit in Galatians 5 that is normally translated “goodness” as being instead a Holy Spirit produced inner conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people.” I think that’s a godly opinion and perspective. One that ascribes worth to God to others and God world.
That’s great.

God’s solution for a torn cosmos is a restored people, restored in relationship with a loving Father, manifesting his very nature as they live in this cosmos.

JESUS RESTORES the RESTORERS!

TORN Series# 2, Cosmos, PowerPoint Slides