The New Creation

— The Big Picture of what God is doing — Andrew Fountain: Oct 20, 2015

• I want to start by talking about the big story —what is reality all about?
  • Have you ever done a huge jigsaw puzzle?
    • If you have a bright blue piece, and you want to know where it goes, —you look at the picture on the box you see that there are some bright blue flowers at the bottom left.
    • Seeing the big picture lets you figure out where your part fits in.
  • So it’s vital that we see the big story of what God is doing.
• Traditionally Christians have made forgiveness of sins the big story
  • That is certainly one of the most important parts of it
  • but it’s inside a bigger story
• I’m going to argue that the biggest of all stories is
  Old creation → New Creation!
  • Once we can see the picture on the box, then we can fit in the pieces of the other things I’m going to talk about this week, like the church

Earth

• 1. The Big Picture: Two Creations
• God Created the world
  • Sin entered and the perfect creation was corrupted
  • God promised Eve that one day he would destroy Satan permanently
  • The Earth became increasingly rebellious against God
  • He destroyed it with the flood
• God’s ways:
  • God never just simply patches up the old
  • He always does something new
  • And then invites the old to become part of it
• e.g. trying gradually to renovate my house
  • But if God was renovating a house, he would completely rebuild it from the inside
  • He would not simply patch it up, but everything would be renewed any perfect

Floodwater

• God made a new start with Noah
  • After a few generations it was as bad as ever
  • All the people of the earth were corrupt except one family (Noah)
• God decided to start again with just that family
  • All were invited, but only 8 went into the ark
  • The old world was destroyed and a “new world” began

Abraham

• So God made a new start with Abraham and his descendents
  • Abraham was like another Adam or another Noah
  • The descendents grew into the nation of Israel

Tabernacle

• A Nation is born
  • God brought them out of Egypt and made a new start with the whole nation
  • by giving them the law and making the covenant at Mt. Sinai
  • Within days they had broken his covenant and refused to trust him
• So God decided to make a new start with the next generation, the Joshua generation
  • The Old generation died in the wilderness

Jericho

• The New generation conquerored the promised land under Joshua
  • He gave Israel the promised land
  • They were ruled by judges
  • To start off with it was good,
    • but they became increasingly like the corrupt nations around

King David

• So he chose a man, David, to lead them back to him
  • he promised David that one day a totally new start would be made with one from his line
    • David made a new start in the worship of God, and established the “tabernacle of David”
  • God’s presence in their midst had purifying power
    • But they did not value his presence
  • But throughout this time the prophets start to whisper about a totally new creation
    • Particularly Isaiah

Babylonian Siege of Jerusalem

• David’s own desendents fell into extreme sin
  • The Nation of Israel became hopelessly corrupt
  • God allowed the entire nation to be taken away into captivity
  • Then invited all those who had a heart for him to return to start a renewed nation back in Palestine, with a new temple
  • Only 42,000 accepted the invitation
• God made a new start with those who returned from captivity
  • To start with there was a passion and zeal for God
  • Gradually groups like the Pharisees and Saducees replaced true worshipers
• But things were now ready for an entirely new creation in Jesus Christ
  • All the new starts up till now were just pictures of what God one day would do
  • Up till now, God had just been re-shaping old material.
    • Now he would do something entirely fresh

Sunrise

• But what Jesus did was totally unexpected
  • He began the new creation before the old one was ended
  • One of the words he used for it was the “Kingdom”
• This Kingdom is invisible to the old creation, but they can see its effects
  • love, truth, justice, faithfuless
  • but also healing, restoration, victory over darkness
• It would invisibly grow like yeast in bread
  • and seemingly small and weak like a tiny seed would grow into a great tree
• Jesus, with his resurrected body, became the first full new-creation being
  • But all people had to do was to believe him and they would receive the seed of this new life
  • Soon it was rapidly spreading over the whole world
  • Nothing can stop it eventually reaching every nation

Butterfly

• Then the old creation will finally be destroyed
  • Sin and pain and suffering will be gone forever
  • and we will receive new creation bodies, like caterpillars turning into butterflies

Updated on 2015-10-20 by Andrew Fountain