The New Creation

By Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor of Grace United Methodist, 9833 Hixson Pike, Soddy Daisy, TN 37379 www.gbgm-umc.org/grace-sdtn

John 13:31-35

Revelation 21:1-6

“The New Creation”

How do we know God?

How are we able to see what God is

like?

In Genesis we are told:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…”

and “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them…

… and “God saw all that he had made, and it was good.”

It’s interesting that the last book of the Bible ends where the first book of the Bible begins.

Have you ever noticed that?

In Genesis God is creating this new stuff…this new world…with these people who bear His likeness…and all is well…until we use our God-given ability to exert our free-will upon the situation…and we decide to move away from relationship with God…

…and this is where we get ourselves and the rest of the created order into real hot water isn’t it?

But God isn’t finished with us yet!

God doesn’t give up on us.

So He sends His Son to repair the relationship we fractured…

…God is the One Who makes the move toward us…

…and we are still the same…

…we still have free-will…

…but we are given this second chance.

And this second chance is through our faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!!!

God does all the work!

All we have to do is believe.

And in believing, well, God starts this process called the “New Creation” or the Church…which is you and I and everyone else who, given the grace to believe, decides (using our free-will) to believe what we know to be true!

“I am making everything new!,” God declares in Revelation Chapter 21…

…or I like the way the King James reads: “Behold I am making all things new!”

Yes, the Bible is the story of a wonderfully loving and creative God Who makes all this stuff we see…and then creates you and I to not only be the stewards of the earth, the sky, the sea, but to also be God’s best friends.

We were created for relationship…

…relationship with God and relationship with one another.

It’s a love story, really.

It’s a tragic love story with a most amazing beginning, middle and end!!!

And it’s a love story that we are all a part of…no one is left out…it’s what’s happening now!!!

And May 6th is not the beginning and it’s obviously not the very end…

…I suppose we are somewhere between the middle and the end…

…which is only just the beginning…

Anyhow, it’s a beautiful story.

And it’s about our life.

It’s what we know.

You know, John Wesley, the Founder of the Methodist Church, was such an optimist!

For Wesley, the glass was always half full!

For in his analysis of things…

…Wesley believed that God foresaw that we were going to be disobedient to God…

…Wesley believed that God allowed this Fall to occur because the divine remedy for it was far more blessed than the horrible consequences.

And the blessings are that the Fall opens up the possibility for you and I to attain, and now I’m quoting Wesley, “more holiness and happiness on earth than it would have been possible to attain if Adam had not fallen. For if Adam had not fallen Christ had not died…”and “there would have been no room for that amazing display of the Son of God’s love to [humankind].”

In other words, if it hadn’t been for the Fall, we wouldn’t have been able to experience the full-extent of God’s love for us!!!

So, really, the “New Creation” is better than the “original.”

…and the original was “good”…so just think what we have to look forward too…those of us “who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Anyhow, we were created in God’s image in order to reflect God’s love in this world.

And without Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives…there isn’t much reflecting going on!

And so, again I ask, “How do we know God? How do we know what God is like?”

Certainly, we learn to know God and what God is like through reading the Bible…but what about before that?

How come we believe that there is a God?

And a loving God at that?

We have experienced God, have we not?

We have experienced the unconditional agape love of God!!!

We’ve gotten to know God through looking at nature…

…the beauty of the flowers,

the creativity of all the wildlife and the colors…

…but we learn about God’s love through…

…a mother…

…or if not a mother…

…a father…

…and if not a father…

…an aunt or a grandmother or a neighbor or…or…a Youth Leader….