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God's Green Earth

04/20/2008 - Caring for God's Green Earth, Selected Scripture

This Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. It's also the Pennsylvania primary. And Wednesday is National Administrators Day. It's a busy week. So if you work in an office, after you clean up your yard and go to out vote, take your administrator out to breakfast or lunch or do something nice for them!

We've just finished a series of teachings called The End of Evil? that have taken us right through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It put the whole story of God together for us and revealed that he has a plan for this earth. And his plan is to renew it, redeem it, restore it, resurrect it, and rid it once and for all of evil.

God wants to reclaim his original dream for creation and even take it to the next level. So the Bible opens with a beautiful garden in Genesis 1-2, perhaps the size of a national park, we don't know how big it was, and ends with a another beautiful garden in Revelation 21-22 only this time it's contained in a huge city, the New Jerusalem, whose walls we're told are 1,500 miles long, the distance from here to Dallas, Texas. That's the image we're given of a huge city where God himself will live with his people one day.

The ultimate goal for those of us who follow Christ is not to die and go to heaven someday and float around for eternity playing harps. The ultimate goal is for heaven and all those who are in it to come here and for us to live here in a resurrected body on a resurrected earth. Heaven is just a stop on the way.

And knowing that changes everything. At least it has for me because for a long time I thought that God was finished with this earth and that Jesus was going put it in the dumpster when he comes back. Things just didn't work out the way God had hoped. Satan had trashed the garden and ruined God's plan and so he was going to destroy it all and start over from scratch.

But as we've worked our way through the Scriptures in this past series and in The Dream of God series a few years ago we've discovered that that's not what the Bible teaches. That's not what the prophets were preaching, that's not what Jesus or the apostles were saying and that's not how the story ends.

So knowing that God has a plan for this earth has changed my view of how I look at the earth and how I take care of it, which is why for the next few weeks we want to talk about "Caring for God's Green Earth." I agree with Tony Campolo when he says, "Christians have let others hijack the environmental movement and make it their own domain. Environmentalism should be a Christian concern."

This is becoming the issue of our day. We all share the same planet and we all need to come together to take of it. Check out this video of Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson from wecansolveit.org.

On the website Pat Robertson is quoted as saying, "It's just common sense that we ought to be good stewards of the environment and do everything within our power to protect this fragile planet that we all live on."

It makes good common sense and good biblical sense too. God's desire has always been for humankind to value his creation, to steward the earth, to work it, and take good care of it. That's how the whole story begins. Turn to Genesis 1:27-31 (page 1). This passage is often referred to as God's cultural mandate for all people and it has never been rescinded.

Look at Genesis 1:27-31 (page 1), God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ²⁸God 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." ²⁹Then God said, "I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.³⁰And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the ground - everything that has the breath of life in it - I give every green plant for food." And it was so. ³¹God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the sixth day.

To the first man and the first woman God said I want you to rule over my creation, over the world that I have made. Fill the earth and subdue it. That's the mandate.

Well, over the millennia I think we've done a pretty good job of filling the earth. When Jesus was alive experts estimate that there were about 250 million people on the planet, but it took until 1776, the year America was born, to reach 1 billion.

The global population has exploded just in my lifetime. The year I was born, shortly after 1776, there were 2.7 billion people on the planet. That's a big number. But today, just in my lifetime of 29 years (ha!), there are 6.6 billion people, more than double that. And when I read that this week I thought, "No way! All that happened in my little lifetime! No wonder Route 422 is a mess in the morning!"

And experts tell us that if population growth continues at its current rate of 1.14%, which doesn't sound like a lot, that figure will double in less than 60 years to 13 billion people in 2067. Fill the earth. We're doing it. By the way, did you know that half the people who have ever lived on this planet are living right now? That's amazing to me.

But God didn't just say, Fill the earth. He said in Genesis 1:28 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. The idea behind the Hebrew word "subdue" is to rule or take authority over the earth. The earth was to provide food for humankind, first from vegetation we read in verse 29, plants and trees, and then God expands the menu to include animals as well in Genesis 9.

But taking authority over the earth never meant to misuse the earth or abuse the earth. Nor does it mean we worship the earth. We were never meant to worship the creation. The earth is good, but the earth is not God. God is separate from his creation. And there are strong warnings all throughout Scripture about the dangers of worshipping anything that God has made. That's what idolatry is and that's what dehumanizes us.

Creation is not God, but it is good. And there's a real connection between us and this earth. We were created by God from the earth. Look at Genesis 2:7, Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The first man was created by God out of the dust of the earth. The Hebrew word for earth is "adamah" and so the man is given the name "Adam."

The man comes from the ground. The trees come from the ground. Look at Genesis 2:9, The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground - trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.

Animals and birds come from the ground. Look at Genesis 2:19, Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky.

There's this real, mysterious, complex connection between this earth and all that God has made including us. And we are given the responsibility to steward it and take care of it. Look at Genesis 2:15, The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

God's good creation was a work in process. It was alive. It was dynamic. It was growing. And it needed the care of humankind. I like the way Rob Bell puts it in his book Velvet Elvis when he writes, "God empowers the land to produce trees and shrubs and plants and bushes that produce fruit and seeds. God gives fish and birds the ability to make more fish and birds. He loads his creation with potential and possibility and promise. It's going to grow and change and move and not be the same today as it was yesterday, and tomorrow it will move another day forward.

"God then makes people whom he puts right in the middle of all this loaded creation, commanding them to care for creation, to manage it, to lovingly use it, to creatively order it. The words he gives are words of loving service and thoughtful use. From day one they are in an intimate relationship and interaction with their environment. They are environmentalists. Being deeply connected with their environment is who they are. For them to be anything else or to deny their divine responsibility to care for all that God has made would be to deny something that is at the core of their existence.

"This is why litter and pollution are spiritual issues. And until that last sentence makes perfect sense, we haven't fully grasped what it means to be human and live in God's world. Every one of us is an environmentalist. We cannot live independently of the world God has placed us in. We are intimately connected by God." Did you hear that? That is why litter and pollution are spiritual issues.

We see that connection again when Adam rebels and disobeys God and everything is thrown off balance.

Look over at Genesis 3:17-19, To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you, through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. ¹⁸It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return."

In some mysterious way God's good creation is all knit together, people and animals and the environment. So when Adam disobeys the whole earth suffers. In Romans 8, the apostle Paul talks about how all creation is groaning and longing to be set free from the curse. Well this is when all that groaning began. Our concern for the environment is rooted in God's love for his creation and our connection with the earth.

Let me take you to one more passage today that shows just how serious God is about taking care of his green earth. It's found in Leviticus 25.

In the book of Leviticus, the book one we skipped over in the E100, God is instructing his people on how they are to treat the environment when they enter the Promised Land. They had been slaves in Egypt for over 400 years and didn't have much say in how the Egyptians handled the environment, but once they have their own real estate this is how they're to steward it. And I think it's fascinating.

Look at Leviticus 25:1-7, The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, ²"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD. ³For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. ⁴But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. ⁵Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. ⁶Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, ⁷as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.

The Lord said when you get into the Promised Land I want you to farm it and enjoy its produce, but I also want you to give it a break every seventh year. Take a year off! This is where the whole concept of a sabbatical comes from, taking a break from work every seventh year. Sounds good to me! Of course, God modeled the importance of rest after his six days of creation. But here he wants the creation itself, the land that produced wheat and barley, grapes and olives and figs, the land that was Israel's economy, to get a good rest every seventh year.

And if they did that God would provide enough food to cover the year off. Check this out in verses 18-22, Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. ¹⁹Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. ²⁰You may ask, "What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?" ²¹I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. ²²While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.

What a deal! God says, "Give the land a break every seventh year and I'll give you enough in the sixth year to cover the seventh when you're not planting, the eighth when you're just starting to plant, and the ninth when you're waiting for the harvest to come." What an amazing, generous God!

But Israel never obeyed God's command. They got greedy and they worked the land to death without a break for 490 straight years. They missed 70 sabbatical years until God finally said, "Enough! That's enough!"

And so he physically removed his people from the land and took Israel into exile in Babylon for seventy years, one year of captivity for each sabbatical year they violated, so that the land could get the rest it deserved.

2 Chronicles 36:20-21 puts it this way, He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant who escaped from the sword … ²¹then the land enjoyed its sabbath rests, all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah.

God advocates for the earth because it was being abused. He cares about it and he wants us to care about it too.

And so knowing God's love for his creation, our mysterious connection to it, our mandate to take care of it, and his dream to one day renew it should motivate God's people to be out in front when it comes to environmental issues. Unfortunately, the church in America has not been. I have not been. I've been part of the problem and not part of solution for way too long. But God is changing that in me and I hope he's changing that in you too.

So where do we go from here? Well, when you read the literature out there on things like global warming and dwindling resources and the damaging impact of American consumerism it doesn't take very long to feel overwhelmed and helpless. This is a huge problem, a global problem way bigger than any one person or one government can solve, but together we can make a difference. It's not going to happen overnight, but it can happen over time. And next week we want to talk about how we can make a difference in this world environmentally and how we can all develop a stewardship mindset when it comes to handling the resources of this planet.

But I want to close by showing you this picture. This is the first picture ever taken of the earth from space. It was taken on Christmas Eve, 1968, by Bill Anders a member of the Apollo 8 mission. It became known Earth Rise. And some of us remember that when the crew of that mission watched the earth rising out of the darkness of space, the commander, Frank Borman, read Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

And it didn't take long for this image to explode into the consciousness of humankind. In fact, within two years of this picture the environmental movement was born. The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Natural Environmental Policy Act, the first Earth Day all happened within a few years of this picture being seen for the first time. It's a powerful image that reminds us all of how fragile this earth really is.

This is my Father's world
And to my listening ears
All nature sings and round me rings
The music of the spheres

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.