Sermon for January 1, 2023 Fresh Grace for a New Year, Boundaries Series: Creation
Welcome to 2023. Who knew we’d make to 2023. Isn’t that the future? I remember when it turned 1975, and I was 12 and I felt like changing to 1975 was this huge catapult into the future. I was so excited! That’s ancient history. Time is a strange animal.
But we’re here and I’m glad we made it. Can you say: “Thank you God that we made it to 2023!”?
And as we begin this year I hope we can see 2023 as a year to freshly experience grace, to make the choice to live with more appreciation for the life that we’ve been given.
I think that this is really important: living with eyes open and with a heart of gratitude for who and what is in our life today.
Can you say amen? Amen for the good gifts of God, the good times and the times of fulness. Amen for the grace of God that is fresh today.
And amen to the fact that God was with us in some of our hardest yesterdays. Do you have some hard yesterdays?
For some of us 2022 was hard. Last year some of us lost people, family members or folks that we’ve known and journeyed with completed their journey on the planet, and that was hard.
So if you lost someone this past year, we understand that you are still hurting. We may not talk about it a lot, but we understand the pain and we have compassion for you who are still struggling deeply with those losses.
We are to mourn with those who mourn. That’s part of what it means to be the body of Christ.
When we reminisce about the past, we can get very sad about the folks that just aren't around anymore. And we often wish we could go back and tell them we love them.
Sometimes I think, If I could somehow go back there again I would just be more aware and more grateful for those who were in my life back then.
I would then live life more correctly and appreciatively, so then now, all these years later, I wouldn’t miss those people so terribly, as I do sometimes.
In my case I’m thinking of family members like Barb’s mother Shirley and friends that have been very important in my life like Rick Tobias. Of course you have those who you miss terribly.
But of course, we can’t go back. In our heads, yes, we can visit, but in reality we can’t go back.
So what’s the solution, if there is a solution? Time travel is out of the question.
The solution, or the way forward, is to live now with a heightened sense of gratitude and joy for those who are in our lives now, for the things of importance now.
It’s almost like to live as though I’m in the future, and many of these people are gone, but then to live now with the intensity and joy and appreciation that I would have wanted to have lived these moments. How’s that for mental time travel.
But that’s me rushing ahead of myself. Today I want to talk about 2 connected but distinct things. The first I’ve touched on already [moving into 2023 with fresh resolve to honour God and live at our best] and we’ll come back to in a few minutes. The second is that we are launching, for the New Year, a new preaching series on Boundaries.
Say what? Why would anybody want to do that?
We decided as a pastoral team that boundaries are a very important part of life, and that very often the problems that people face in life are related to boundaries - sometimes it’s not having boundaries, sometimes it’s not understanding that we can even set boundaries.
Sometimes it’s having a huge wall in place for a boundary when in fact for us to live better what we need is a small fence.
And today I want to just touch on the boundaries that God has set for His creation, including us, but I want to talk in a general sense. Next week we’ve get more into the nitty gritty.
So what are the boundaries that God has set for His Creation?
Genesis 1:1-2
1 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.
Well, our first Scripture verse today talks about the first boundary that God created. Of course “In the beginning God...” expresses this as well.
In the beginning was not matter, it was not this tiny speck that at the Big Bang exploded into what would become the known universe including this planet. In the beginning there were not many gods, and in the beginning there was not, notably, nothing.
God was in the beginning. God, the author of time, who lives outside of time, has existed for all time. That means that there was never a time when God was not.
God did not have a Maker. Sometimes skeptics will say, “Well who created God then?!?” as though that was a question with no good answer that closes the door on faith in God. Yeesh.
The answer is both frustrating and mind-blowing. God wasn’t created, there was never One before Him. And God’s existence is not tethered to, bound to, chained to time.
So in that sense as in others God is unlike anything or anyone else. That’s why it is said that God is “wholly Other”.
God can only be understood as being in a category all to Himself. And from that place of full and complete self-sufficiency, God, Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit - complete and perfect community - God chose to create the heavens and the earth. And that was the first boundary.
No longer was there nothing outside of Himself. Now there was something, however yet undefined. There was the heavens.
And there was the Earth. The heavens were not the earth. The earth were not the heavens. Two distinct things. That's a way of understanding boundaries.
And ever since God created the heavens and the Earth, they have been separate things.
Before God created the world, God existed, like I said as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They dwelt as the Godhead in perfect unity.
There was and was to be distinction between them, but they operated in completed unity, what is sometimes called the divine dance.
You might call that a very soft boundary between the members of the Trinity.
And then we see in verse 2 that the Earth itself was formless, empty, and very dark. And the spirit of God hovered there.
From there on in Genesis God created more things, things both on earth and in the skies above. More distinctions, more things that were unalike, yet intended to live in harmony.
In every aspect of the creation, in some way specific mention is made of a division between parts of creation.
A bit later in Genesis chapter 1 we see that there are boundaries set between light and darkness - we can see how that’s necessary. Between the different kinds of water, and between sea and land - makes sense for that boundary to exist.
Both vegetation and animals multiply after their own kind. There is clearly a distinction between humans and the rest of the world.
This aspect of divisions and boundaries between those divisions plays an important role in our understanding.
And the crown of His creation was humanity, Adam and Eve. A man and a woman. Distinct but complementary. Intended as in the garden to work together, to create out of this new world, a world that would be self-contained, sustainable.
And both Adam and Eve were expressions of God. and to His new creation of humanity. Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
These are distinctions and boundaries with purpose. God wants the earth to flourish with all creatures, but especially with the creature that He will give responsibility to care for the planet and all living things.
So He created them male and female with the capacity to create life that would create life that would create life.
You know about our young grandson Stevie, soon to be 2 1/2 years old, who I talk about a lot because he brings Barbara and I enormous joy. Well, soon Stevie will have a brother.
And Barb and I are amaezed at how our union, our marriage, our love created our own children, and then our daughter Elia is having her own family now. Put up your hand if you're a grandparent! It’s the best!
And part of what becoming a grandparent does is help you to see yourself like you may not have seen before, in this created order, this great wisdom of God that creates, and continues to create through His own creation.
It’s beautiful. God our Creator and sustainer is worthy of our worship. Amen? Amen.
And then we have the Scripture as a whole that helps us to see how God's very own creation - the whole created order - reveals the fact that he is distinct from us, that his power is eternal, and his nature is divine.
That is a very simple but important distinction that really needs to be understood. God is God and we are not.
That lays the groundwork for us to understand that we cannot expect to live our best life, and we definitely cannot expect to live in eternity, when we choose to live by our ways rather than God's ways.
To understand the distinction between ourselves and God is to honour the boundaries that God has set up for us. Those boundaries are expressed in creation, as I've already mentioned, but those boundaries are also expressed in God's law.
Next week we have a guest speaker, Philip Fearon, who will be going much more into depth about the 10 Commandments and God's laws as examples of boundaries for us to follow.
But for now, I just want to say that in the 10 Commandments, we see boundaries that God creates for our well-being, for us to live well in relationship to him, which the first four Commandments are about,
and then in relationship to one another, which the last six Commandments are about.
So that's a little bit on boundaries and creation. Hopefully we can see how essential boundaries are and how respecting boundaries is extremely important to living well and Growing in our relationships, including our relationship with God.
So that's what I want to say about boundaries for now.
Our last passage for today speaks of why we should look forward to what God will do afresh in us and what He promises to us for eternity.
And the passage references creation, which we have been talking about, which was impacted so severely by human sin.
Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
So all of Creation, though broken and decaying because of us, (even creation was impacted by the human choice to sin and to try to be like God)...creation is waiting for something.
Even Creation has hope, in a sense, that it will be liberated from bondage and decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. That’s awesome. There’s a big, global healing in view.
This big, dusty, rusty, busted planet that currently, the Scripture says, groans as if it was in childbirth is waiting for something.
It’s something just within the reach of our imagination. It’s something we sometimes hope against hope for.
It’s something that followers of Jesus, too, struggle to grasp the enormity of. Creation, all of it, will be reconciled to God.
Colossians 1:19-20 says: 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 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 will reconcile all things to God, things on earth and things in heaven. God’s space, heaven will eventually mesh with our space. And somehow, somehow, the healing of this planet is tied into the healing of...you, and me.
The freedom of this planet is tied to our freedom. The glory of this planet is tied to our glory.
And the way the Apostle Paul puts it, that coming Wonder, that big reconciliation of all things that is coming, puts our present problems, our present sufferings into perspective.
That perspective is that our present sufferings don’t hold a candle in their depth and weight and sorrow, to the coming hope, the glory that will be revealed in us.
So how do we live into that hope when we, or some of us, have just come off a really difficult year that we’re still recovering from?
The truth is that suffering can drive us closer to God, or further from him. We can allow suffering to raise doubts or reinforce doubts we generally carry.
Or we can do something that is both simple and profound. Increasingly, with more and more passion and resolve, we can press in to Jesus. We can run in to God. That is our choice.
We should hope for a better tomorrow, but that hope must be tied to something we talked about during Advent. It must be tied to Joy.
It must be tied to our personal and collective decision to go deep with God, deeper than we have gone before.
The deeper we are grounded in God, the deeper our joy that is not dependant on our circumstances.
The deeper we choose to go in our walk with Jesus, the greater the likelihood that we will survive whatever storms may come.
The deeper we press in to God, the more we will remember, when bad things happen around us or to us, that we never walk alone.
We always walk with Jesus by our side. And more than that, we walk with the knowledge that we walk as beloved sons and daughters of the most high King of the universe.
Today I choose to run into God. To embrace and be embraced by Him. By His power and might, we will endure whatever hardships may come. By His goodness and grace we will rejoice in His loving goodness.
Let us pray. Holy God, thank you for Your loving care of each of us. Thank you that You know each person here and You make Yourself known to us in Jesus, Your Son. God we come to You thirsty, we come to You in humility.
We come to You so thankful for the gift of eternal life that comes to us through the holy sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us.
Today, this first Sunday of 2023, we do embrace your love afresh, and we do renew ourselves, we renew our commitment to love you and to serve you with our whole being. Holy Spirit, fill us anew with Your presence.
Help us to recognize you above all else. Enlighten the eyes of our heart that we might see you, and notice how you're at work through our lives. Give us the wisdom to make the best choices, choices that honour Your holy name.
Fill us with a desire to seek after you more than anything else in this world. Let your Spirit and power breathe in us, through us, again, fresh and new. Thank you that you are greater than anything we may face each day this coming year.
Thank you that your presence goes with us and that your joy is never dependent on our circumstances, but it is our true and lasting strength, no matter what we're up against.
We ask that your peace lead us, that it would guard our hearts and minds in you. We ask for your grace to cover our lives this day. We love you Lord...we need you. In Jesus' Name, Amen
