Jesus in Creation - Finding Jesus in the Old Testament - Part 1
Intro Story: When I was young believer, I wasn’t really clear on who Jesus is. I had a sense that he was divine, that He had the power to forgive sins, and I believed that he had given his life for me, taken away my sins in order to make it possible for me to have a relationship with God.
At the beginning, beyond that, I didn’t know much more than that.
And I also learned fairly early on that people had different views on who Jesus is.
I went to a particular mainstream church where the preacher referred to Jesus as someone who may have been God, may not have been God. It didn’t really matter.
That both struck me odd that important detail like that can strike anyone, let alone a pastor, as a matter of opinion; and it didn’t line up with what I was reading in Scripture.
So this inspired me to look more deeply into the Bible to learn more about Jesus.
And as I gained some clarity from the Word of God about Jesus, it began to impact my experience of worship. I would spend longer in worship, I would experience God in a fuller way.
The result was a big change in how I lived day to day. Worshipping God began to impact my outlook on life.
I started to feel more positive, more hopeful, more confident and more joyful. I even became more brave, stepping out into new situations and unknown territory.
It’s what led to me coming to the mission 33 years ago to explore what mission life was about.
Intro to Series: Today we begin a 4 week series on Jesus in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.
In this short series we will look at Jesus in Creation, Jesus in the Law, Jesus Incognito and Jesus in prophecy.
You might wonder about what we mean by Jesus in the OT.
We are use to Jesus in the time of the gospels. His incarnation, His parables, the miracles, the interactions with the disciples.
If we’ve been around church much or done much Bible reading, we know about the betrayal of Jesus, His suffering and death on the cross, followed by His resurrection.
But what about before His incarnation.
My hope is that as we explore these themes together, we will grow in our understanding and appreciation of Who Jesus is in His fullness, and that this will lead all of us to an even greater commitment to love and worship God with all our being.
Knowing Jesus CHANGES us, and the more we know Him and know the more our lives are changed.
So today we look at Jesus in Creation. Before we do that let’s look at some things in the gospels narratives about Jesus and His relationship with creation.
We see hints in the Gospels of the authority of Jesus over creation.
Jesus calling the storm, Jesus enabling Peter to walk on the water, Jesus impacting human creation: healing the sick, raising the dead.
We see Jesus talking to the religious leaders of His day. He talked to them about their hypocrisy, and He talked to them about Himself.
And when He talked about Himself, He made what amounted to a much bolder claim then saying “I am divine“.
We see Jesus using for himself, the name that God the father gave Moses on the occasion of the burning bush, “I am”. He tells the Pharisees in John chapter 8, “Before Abraham was, I am”.
We see Jesus in the Gospel’s talking about him being one with the father.
In case we ourselves miss the reference, we see in the response of the religious leaders around him a lot of anger because to them, who know what he is saying, he is explicitly claiming to be equal with God.
So there’s hints in the New Testament about Jesus, both in His words and in His actions. He’s connected to creation, all of creation in a very special way.
But what part did Jesus have in Creation? Before the incarnation, what was Jesus doing?
Colossians 1 gives us some good insights, and it talks about Who Jesus is and what He has always been:
Read together?:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” ??Colossians? ?1:15-20? ?NIV??
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This gives us insight into Jesus that the gospels strongly hint at, but which the Apostle Paul explains.
Jesus is the earthly image of God. When you want to know: what is God like, you can look at Jesus. In Him we get a perfect picture of the nature and character of God.
What does it mean that he is “the firstborn over all creation”? To understand that we need to think for a moment about the original language.
The Greek word prototokos, which is translated as firstborn, can refer to different things. It could refer either to something or someone that is first in order of time, such as a firstborn child, or it could refer to someone who is preeminent in rank.
Or it could refer to someone who was BOTH firstborn and preeminent in rank. It all depends upon the context.
Here it means that Jesus is pre-eminent. What does that mean? Surpassing all others. More important or more powerful than all the others.
Jesus is the agent of creation. In Him everything, and I mean everything, was created. He is before all things. That further explains the idea of pre-eminent. All things hold together in Him.
Hebrews 1:3 expresses this important point as well:
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Show video: https://youtu.be/BljrAME1LLw
All of those fine and intricate details in the creation and sustaining of the universe are the work of Jesus.
Yes, Jesus is the Creator God. Everything that has been made was made by Jesus Who is the agent of Creation.
This gives us a glimpse of why He is worthy of our worship, why He’s worthy of our adoration, why He’s worthy to be followed, to base our life upon.
All the fine and intricate details that sustain your life, give you purpose and hope are also in Jesus.
As you worship Jesus, you consciously connect with the One Who controls all things in nature and Who works in your life for good.
And His power of course extends to the gathered body of believers, the church. That’s you and me.
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”
Jesus is our Head. He is the first to have been raised from the dead by His own power. Why? So that in everything He will have and be known to have the supremacy.
This helps us to understand who we are and why we’re here and what we’re about as the people of God.
We are the ones for Whom Jesus died, and not only us, but all who have trusted and will come to trust in His saving work on the cross.
God the Father had all His fullness dwell in Jesus. And God is reconciling, fixing every broken thing, through Jesus by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.
Next week we look into why the sacrifice of Jesus was so incredibly important, and how the system of blood sacrifice for sin in the OT prepared the way for us to understand the power of Jesus sacrifice on the cross for us.
Is Jesus, God fixes every broken thing. There are broken things in me. There are impure things in me. My hope, our hope for healing is in Jesus who includes you and me in His reconciling work that is ongoing.
So that’s just a glimpse, from the NT, about Jesus’ role in creation and Jesus’ power right now to heal, to deliver and to make all things new.
Let’s look at a few passages from the OT that help us understand Jesus in creation.
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we see the first of 2 accounts of the creation of the world.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Then God creates light and sees that it is good. Then God creates and separates the waters and creates the seas.
Then God creates the earth, vegetation and plants and trees and light. He creates living creatures in the sea and birds of the air, and the animals on the earth. And after all that, god is pleased. God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God says: “Let’s make mankind in OUR image, OUR likeness”.
Simple question: who is the “Us” that makes mankind? It is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As Colossians helps us to understand, Jesus is the author of all things, the agent of creation.
Some who dislike this will say that the “us” and “our” is the plural of majesty, in an effort to specifically NOT SEE Jesus in creation. I say, YES!
It is the plural of majesty, and it helps us to see the very nature of God, the Triune nature of God, the Trinity.
The doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is "one God in three Divine Persons". The three Persons are distinct, yet are one "substance, essence or nature".
That mystery, about the communal nature of God, is revealed extremely early in the Bible, in the first chapter.
So in the image of Jesus humanity was made. In the image of God you were made. If you stop to think about it, that really matters. And it really throws any idea you might have about yourself being worthless, under the bus.
You are created in the image of God. That’s why you deserve dignity. You deserve respect.
A while back someone I meet with often to counsel and support said that while they waited at the reception at 270 Gerrard, Pastor Arleen, who used to work there, Florence, and the many other receptionists would treat everybody, and I mean everybody, with the same kindness.
Poor, rich, stranger, friend, gay, trans, mentally unstable, white, black, brown.
This person said they found that very unusual.
I said it’s because we know that all are made in the image of God, and that alone gives us reason and motive to treat everyone with kindness and respect.
And not just everyone else. How about ourselves?
We must learn to treat ourselves with kindness and respect – which is loving ourselves – if we are to honour the God Who made us.
So, Jesus, in creation. This is one reason that we worship Him.
And then we reflect on what God is doing today - sustaining life, giving each of us breath this morning; providing for our needs; caring about injustice and inspiring His people to pursue justice; forgiving, embracing,
Warming our lives with the gift of His presence, His Spirit Who dwells in us.
Transforming our lives, altering and improving the direction of our lives.
We look forward to the fulfillment of his promises in the future, knowing on the basis of His goodness and faithfulness in the past, that He will do what He says He will do, no matter how much chaos reigns in the world or in our lives.
We let in the Word of God – we intentionally let the truth of God flow over our lives.
Philippians 1:6 says: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.
Do you believe that? We need to believe that if we’re really going to move forward. God will complete every good thing He has begun in you.
End:
Colossians 2: sums up our hope and the reason why we need to develop and maintain a razor-sharp focus on worshiping Jesus.
This is important for every last one of us, including the young ones among us in school:
8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
Young people here: Don’t be led astray by the hollow and deceptive philosophies that permeate our school system. You are learning about materialism and you are being taught in school that only what is measurable by human limitations is trustworthy.
That is not at all true, and it will only have power to dissuade you, take you away from the truth of Jesus if you give in to it.
So we are all warned against being deceived, being taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies.
Pray for our young people. It was rough when I was a kid. Now it’s completely toxic.
So we’ve seen that Jesus is the Creator God.
And here again we see that all the fullness5 of God is in Jesus. He is head over every power and authority.
And Jesus is how you and I have been brought into the fullness of a relationship with God.
That means there is, because of Jesus sacrifice for your sins, no barriers between you and God when you believe in Jesus sacrifice for your sins.
You can go directly to God, with your prayer, with your conversations, with your hopes and dreams and aspirations.
That means you can live each day with full knowledge that you belong to God, that your life is with Christ in God, and that your days have meaning.
This allows us to do two things. On the one hand, we can cease from striving, trying to prove ourselves worthy, to God or to anyone else.
On the other hand, we can enter fully into the mission of God, as true worshippers who worship God in spirit and truth. We can lives not focused on our own selfish interests.
We can live lives of blessing toward others, always being ready to share the reason for our hope: we have begun following Jesus and we’re learning to depend on the Spirit of Jesus in our journey.
May we embrace this revelation of who Jesus is. May we indeed cease from striving, and may we grow ever deeper enjoy as we worship the living God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
