Relationship with the Environment. Matthew 8:23-27. Preached Sun 2nd March 2008
I would like to begin with a brief recap on the series of sermons and house group studies on relationships that we have been doing throughout Lent.
We began three weeks ago by focusing on relationships within the family.
And we were reminded that it is only those who do the will of his Father in heaven that Jesus considers to be members of his family.
And on this ‘Mothering Sunday’ we can recall a prime example of the concern of Jesus for one of the members of his family… - as even in the excruciating agony of crucifixion – He was still making provision for the welfare of his mother as he commended her to the care and protection of his friend, the apostle John.
Then, two weeks ago, we turned our attention to how the family of believers were to serve one another, as we focused on relationships within the church.
For it is within and among the family of believers where Christian love and service must start.
And let us not forget that Christian love and service are inseparable. For to show the love of Christ is to serve.
Christian love is not an inert feel good factor. You can feel that way about an ice-cream on a hot summer’s day.
The word that the Bible uses for love is agape. Agape love is demonstrated love. Always expressed in action it is vibrant and alive.
And it must start and grow here among us, because it cannot reach out from the family of believers, if it is not firmly entrenched within the family of believers.
Last week, in the third of our series we looked at ‘Relationships within the Community.’
And of how the love and service that is shared within the family of believers, must reach out and touch the lives of others.
As Dave reminded us last week, quoting from the Message Bible, we are to be the salt that brings out the God flavours of our communities and the light that exposes the darkness and brings out the God colours.
Just like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden – The Church is to be a beacon of hope into our communities, as our heartfelt following of Jesus illuminates the truth of his teaching.
The people of God are to show that there is a different way.
And in these studies we can see a pattern of how our relationships, nurtured within the family of our fellowship, reach out into our communities and beyond with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But we must also remember that each of these relationships, whether among the family of believers or with the communities that surround us, are an expression of our relationship with God and mutually dependant upon each other. None can exist in a Christian context as a separate entity.
Today we are focusing our attention upon our relationship with the environment.
When we speak of the environment, we usually think of the global circumstances that surround us and affect our whole planet…..
…….Ecological issues, global warming, flooding and such like.
But the environment can also describe the social and cultural conditions that directly affect us, both as individuals and as a community.
For example, the social, the cultural, and in particular the family environment in which a child is raised, will each have a bearing on the adult that the child eventually becomes.
I do not believe for one moment that God was being harsh when he said that the iniquities of the father will be visited upon the children….
…… I believe he was simply telling it as it is.
That in this in this fallen world that has separated itself from him, the same social issues that affect one generation will also have a knock on effect for future generations.
That when a child grows in a family environment in which abuse, lies and falsehood are the norm, in many instances that will be the same environment that his or her children will inherit and grow into….. And so on to the children’s children.
In the same way it is difficult for children of the third world…
….born into a life of poverty and want… To rise above their situation.
Here again we see how the relationships that we have been focusing on, overlap into each other because it is obvious that any environment of poverty and want is intricately linked with our community relationship into which we are called to be salt and light.
You know, to bring healing into any situation you cannot go on forever putting a band aid over the symptoms…..
…. You have to also treat the root course of the disease itself.
Because the global or ecological environment impacts so many people that the church must reach out to - Especially the most vulnerable in third world countries –
We must also be salt and light into the ecological aspect of the environment.
In the study guide booklet that the house groups use for the Lent course, the focus on Bangladesh this week looks at the flooding of last year, which claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed thousands of homes and livelihoods.
There is nothing new about ecological disasters…
And as it states in the study guide, the monsoon floods are a regular occurrence in Bangladesh.
But in a reflection of the increasing concerns being raised over other ecological conditions affecting our planet, many scientists believe the flooding is getting worse due to global warming.
Many in Bangladesh would find it difficult to argue against their reasoning, in view of the recent disaster.
Let me pose a question. Why did God create the world?
In the opening chapter of Genesis, God said, “Let us make people in our own image……. ….. To be masters over all life…… To multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
The Amplified Bible says, “ To use all of its vast resources in the service of God and man.”
In referring to this passage of Scripture some people may say that God created the earth for humanity to enjoy. And that because he also put us in charge, the earth and all its resources are ours to use as we choose.
To say that God created the earth for us to enjoy and use is only partially true.
Yes God wants us to enjoy his creation and make full use of all the resources that he has provided us with.
But he did not make it for us! …. I will say that again….
God did not make the earth for us, and as a consequence of that, it is not ours to use or abuse as we choose.
In Colossians 1.16, Paul makes this statement about Jesus…“Christ is the one through whom God created everything in heaven and earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see – kings, kingdoms, rulers and authorities. Everything has been created through him and for him.”
Did you catch the last two words from that passage of scripture? ………. “For him!”
God created this world through Christ and God created this world for Christ.
Kings, kingdoms, rulers, authorities. Everything we can see, everything we cannot see. Everything was created for Jesus Christ.
With God’s blessing, this world is ours to enjoy. ….. But it is not ours to abuse.
Jesus once told a parable about a man who planted a vineyard and then leased it out to tenant farmers. But he retained the freehold, because the whole estate was his son’s inheritance.
In much the same way, we are only the tenant farmers, or the stewards if you like, of God’s creation on earth. Jesus is the owner to whom we will be called to give account of our stewardship.
You know some of the responses to environmental issues from Christians are a study within themselves.
Some say that because Jesus’ Second Coming is imminent, the environment does not really matter as he will then renew all things anyway.
How much comfort do you imagine that logic would bring to those who lost loved ones in the floods of Bangladesh.
Some say that just as God fed the 5000 thousand with five loaves and two fish, he will always provide for us anyway, so why bother.
Again we can only ask how much comfort the thousands of parents throughout the world whose children died of malnutrition today, would gain from their logic.
Yet others think that we are living in the plagues and famines of the last days described in the Book of Revelation…. .So there is nothing we can do about it anyway.
But the plagues and famines described in the last days, affect the whole planet, not just the poorest third world countries.
One thing I do know for certain is that whatever season we may live in…..
….. God would still want us to reach out with compassion and serve Christ to the nations.
Have you noticed the one thing that all of these ‘Christians’ (inverted comas) are saying? They are saying, “It doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t really effect me.”
And some make the comment that the Bible does not seem greatly concerned about environmental issues.
How about this passage from Ezekiel 34:18-19…. Is it not enough for you to keep the best of the pastures for yourselves? Must you also trample down the rest? Is it not enough for you to take the best water for yourselves? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? All that is left for my flock to eat is what you have trampled down. All they have to drink is water that you have soiled.
Have you ever felt really close to God when surrounded by the beauty of his creation?
Have you ever gazed in awe as the sky seems ablaze with colour at sunset, as if like an artist God is painting a great masterpiece in the sky?
Have you ever noticed that no two sunsets are the same?
Have you ever surveyed in wonder the panoramic views from a range of hills or mountain. Or stood on the coast and watch the changing patterns of the sea?
Have you ever felt your heart stir within you as your behold what God himself looked upon and called, ‘excellent in every way?’
…… That is because the Holy Spirit is testifying to your spirit, the love of the creator for his creation.
Romans 1:20 makes it clear that this planet earth and all that lives and grows on it, even the sky above it and the heavens that surround it are an expression of God’s eternal power and divine nature.
Read it and see, the Bible is greatly concerned with environmental issues…. Because God is greatly concerned with environmental issues.
Let me pose another question. Why did Jesus die on a cross?
Ephesians 2:13 states –“Though you were once far away from God, you have now been brought near to him because of the blood of Christ.”
Christ died for you and for me, so that we may have a right relationship with God. Through the blood of Christ we were reconciled to God.
But as we will see in a moment, it is not only people that the blood of Christ reconciled back to God.
You see, when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit, it was not only the relationship between God and people that was spoilt.
In Genesis 3:17, God said to Adam – ‘Because you have done this, cursed is the ground because of you.’
Because of you Adam, the ground is cursed.
Because humanity and creation are so intricately linked.. - in fact they cannot be separated –… ..the breakdown of humanities relationship with God, also effected creation itself.
Which is why we have such things as earthquakes, tidal waves and such like….. things that we term ‘natural disasters.’
Un-natural disasters may be a more accurate term for them because they were not part of God’s excellent creation… …..But the result of humanities separation from God.
Our choosing to go our own way, rather than God’s way, is what theologians call the fall. And when we fell, we dragged down with us the whole created order.
Humanity and creation, as I said, are inseparable..We had been given dominion over creation, it had no choice but to fall with us.
Paul states in Romans 8:20-22 - Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Groaning not in pains of the chaos of ecological disasters, but in the contractions of new birth to glorious freedom from death and decay.
When Jesus said, as he died on the cross, “It is finished,”
Reconciling us to God was not the total extent of the work that he had finished.
Paul tells us in Colossians 1:20, that through Christ, God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross.
In our reading in which Jesus calmed the storm, his rebuke of the wind and waves proclaimed his authority over all the fallen chaos of creation itself.
The calm that followed was a prophetic sign of creation’s freedom from chaos still to come through redemptive work of Christ on the cross.
And as Jesus hung on the cross, the very fabric of creation itself was caught up in the redemptive work of its creator.
It is as if creation itself that had celebrated Jesus’ birth with a new star, now cannot bear the sight of the Son of God hanging on the cross and shrouds itself in a darkness that covers the land.
Luke reports that the light from the sun was gone.
At the moment that Jesus gave up his spirit, the hand of God ripped apart the curtain that hung in the Temple separating people from God’s presence.
And at that same time, the earth itself responded to its salvation in Christ with a mighty earthquake that split rocks apart, burst open tombs…. and terrified the Roman centurion and his soldiers.
As through Christ, all of creation, in a instant, was restored into a right relationship with God.
And now in right relationship we and all of creation, await the final consummation on the day that Jesus returns in glory and establishes for all time and in all of its fullness of glory, God’s Kingdom right here on this earth.
When the Bible talks of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’, it is not talking about something new in the sense of destroying or rejecting the old. The biblical word in Greek is ‘kainos’ which means ‘renewed’ rather than ‘neos’, which means ‘brand new’.
All the more reason to take care of this earth, we are going to occupy it for eternity.
In 2nd Corinthians 5:3 speaking of when we die, Paul says, “We will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies.”
“We will all be transformed in the blinking of an eye,” he states in 1st Corinthians 15:52
We will still be us, but somewhat different.
Different because our transformed body will neither decay nor die.
In the same way, earth will still be earth, but somewhat different.
Different because it will join God’s children in freedom from death and decay.
Think for one moment. This planet belongs to Jesus, not to us.
He created it and described it as excellent in every way when he handed stewardship over to us.
He cared enough to suffer and die on a cross so that all things All of creation may be renewed in him.
Now think of the implications this has for the way we should live….
Think of the implications this has for our Christian attitude to environmental issues.
Although I have never really had any problem in taking on board the reasoning, that if we all went out of our way to make some difference, it would indeed make some difference.
I have to confess, that before I began to prepare this message, my attitude was…
‘When seen against the background of the vast country of China opening a new power station every day…. the output of the industrialised nations…..The gas guzzling cars of America…The burning of the rain-forests, etc. etc. etc. –
What possible difference does it make if I turn of the light in the kitchen, when I will be going back in there in ten minutes or so anyway.’
As I say, that was my attitude….
I have to be honest and say that what has changed it is not that I now believe turning off the kitchen light and such like will make an outstanding difference and solve the world’s problems.
The reason my attitude has changed is because preparing this message has really brought it home to me…
…….. That my discipleship has not reflected or given testimony to the fact that, in addition to dying for each of us on the cross, Jesus also died to restore his creation to the original status of excellent in every way.
Psalm 24:1 states… - and this is where I will finish – ‘The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. The world and its people belong to him.’
Creation is not divine, but if it belongs to God, then I believe that makes it worthy of our respect.
To honour and treat with respect all of nature, animals, birds, fish… and resources of this world which belongs to God. And to honour and treat with respect all of the people of this world who also belong to God, is to honour and treat with respect, God himself.
To honour and treat with respect all of creation is to honour and treat with respect the creator.
And that is something I seek and desire to do with all that I am.
And I am confident that everyone here is of a like mind in this respect.