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TEACHINGS TO VALLEY VIEW COMMUNITY CHURCH

The Dream Fulfilled

04/22/2007 - Is This World Our Home?, Isaiah 60 & 65

I can remember the very first time I went snorkeling. It was the summer after I graduated from college. I had snorkeled before, but only in a swimming pool where the most interesting thing to look at was a few pennies down on the bottom by the drain that always seemed to be clogged with hair and band aids and other disgusting debris. But now I wasn't in a swimming pool, I was in a crystal clear ocean over a colorful coral reef in a beautiful place that looked a lot like paradise to me. I mean if Jesus said, "Bruce, today you'll be with in paradise" and that was the place, I'm there, in a heart beat and I'm not coming back, with my family of course.

But when I first put that mask on and that snorkel in my mouth and dove underwater it took my breath away. I entered into another world teeming with life. I saw fish too many to count of every shape and size and color. And just when I thought I'd seen the most beautiful one, another would come swimming along.

There were whole schools of fish and I could reach out and touch them. It was incredible. I can remember gasping into my snorkel and saying out loud underwater, "Oh my gosh, look at that! Wow! Look at that one over there!" I almost gagged and the fish must have thought I was some kind of a nut, but I couldn't help myself. I was discovering a whole other world that I never knew existed before and certainly hadn't experienced before. And it was just amazing. It was like paradise. Some day, the Bible tells us that paradise, heaven, is going to come to this earth. And it will take our breath away. The first gasp will be followed by a ton more as we discover all kinds of new things in that endlessly wonderful place. And that's only just the beginning.

But it hasn't happened yet as we all know and were reminded of again on Monday when we first heard the shocking news of the tragedy at Virginia Tech University. And as the week progressed and the names were released and then the pictures and then the stories we cried out to God with the saints in Revelation 6, "How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?" How long will you allow evil to reign on this earth? When will you put an end to tragedy?

In his comments at the convocation that took place on that campus Tuesday evening professor and poet Nikki Giovanni said, "We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning …. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy." And one day there will be no more tragedies on this earth.

Today, on the Earth Day, we continue our series called The Dream Fulfilled: Glimpses of the Kingdom with a teaching I've called "Is This World Our Home?" And this morning I want to help us all turn our eyes to a better place, a place that God has prepared for those who love him, a breathtaking place free of tragedy.

Last week we talked about heaven, the place where God dwells now. And we said that heaven is like another dimension, a dimension that's every bit as real as our own, but invisible to the human eye. Heaven is all around us, we just can't see it right now. But some have had the privilege of seeing into that other dimension like Elisha and his servant, Gehazi, in the Old Testament, and the apostle Paul and John in the New Testament. They've seen what's behind the door to heaven.

Heaven is where Jesus is right now and the thief on the cross and Stephen, the first Christian martyr, along with all of those who believe in Christ. But heaven is not our final destination. It is the next stop on the journey, a wonderful stop for sure, but not our final home. Our final home is going to be here on this earth, but not the earth as it exists now. Instead, on an earth that is renewed and restored and resurrected and brought back to the way it was always intended to be. This world is our home, but God's going to restore it first.

The apostle Peter talks about that in one of his very first sermons in Acts 3:19-21 when he says, Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, ²⁰and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you - even Jesus. ²¹He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

God is out to restore everything. He's never given up on his original creation. That's why Earth Day has meaning for us as Christ followers, because God's loves this planet and wants us to love it too and treat it well and not misuse and abuse it. God's not done with it either. That's why the Bible is so full of words like restore. Redeem. Return. Renew. Regenerate. Recover. Resurrect. Each of these powerful biblical words begins with the prefix "re" which suggests a return to an original condition that was ruined and damaged and lost. God is going to renew this world, just like someone renovates an old house or recovers from a life threatening illness or restores a historic painting or rehabs from a deadly addiction. Taking this world back again is what God is out to do.

You see God is the ultimate salvage artist. He loves to restore things back to their original condition. He can turn junk into jewels, trash into treasure, like no one else. He's not going to put this earth in a dumpster and start over from scratch. That would be conceding defeat to the evil one. Instead, he's going to make it new again and so much better.

God is not happy with the way things are right now. He weeps with those who weep in Blacksburg, Virginia, and Baghdad, Iraq, and Darfur, Sudan, and Kabul, Afghanistan, and a ton of other places where hell visits earth every single day. It tears him up, but he's not going to give up. He's going to get it all back again and when he does it's going to be incredible.

But in the meantime, he wants his followers to help push back the forces of evil. And like Tim pointed out on Good Friday, we confront the power of evil with love. I read a lot of emails this week about the largest single shooting in modern American history, emails from people both inside and outside the Valley View community. One person quoted a portion of President Bush's speech that he gave at the special service held on that campus on Tuesday. Maybe you heard it.

In it the President said, "These sources of strength are also in the faith that sustains so many of us. Across the town of Blacksburg and in towns all across America, houses of worship from every faith have opened their doors and lifted you up in prayer. People who have never met you are praying for you. They're praying for your friends who have fallen and who are injured. There's a power in these prayers, real power. In times like this, we can find comfort in the grace and guidance of a loving God. As the Scriptures tell us in Romans 12:21, 'Don't be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'"

As cruel and painful and heartless as this world can be at times, God is capable of bringing good out of evil, triumph out of tragedy and he does it most often through his people. I read an email from a pastor in Blacksburg who wrote, "The sun came up today. Praise God for some normal things. There's so much processing going on here, weeping at random times, a few smiles, still much numbness. The media presence is annoying. A person can't weep or lay down a flower without cameras being aimed at them. Pray that they go home soon. People need time to be alone with God."

"Pray for the many students now home with families, that their hearts would connect, that moms and dads and children would say things that need to be said, to talk about eternity. Many have suggested bringing in some big name speaker, but I feel that comfort will come best person to person, with Christians shining as lights. Our trust right now must not be in big name speakers, but in God's people sharing God's word and his love in the power of God's spirit." That's overcoming evil with good. That's the mission all of us are on. Everyday.

God's work of restoring this broken world has started with us. When we trust Christ, the Bible says, we become new creations. We are redeemed. We are regenerated. We are rescued. We are saved out of the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of light so that we can overcome evil with good and shine in the midst of darkness. And the darker the darkness, the brighter the light. And one day, God says, even our worm eaten, incinerated bodies will be renewed. They'll be resurrected. But God's regenerating work doesn't end with us. It only starts there and one day will spread to every square inch of his creation.

I love how author John Piper puts it when he says, "God promises that the glory of his people will demand a glorious creation to live in. So the fallen creation will obtain the very freedom from futility and evil and pain that the church is given. So when God makes all things new, he makes us new spiritually and morally, he makes us new physically, and then he makes the whole creation new so that our environment fits our perfected spirits and bodies."

One way to look at the Bible is like a great, epic story of God's creation, after all it starts with the words, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible is all about where this creation came from, and where it is right now, and where it's all headed. In Genesis 1-2 we have this picture of God's original, undamaged earth. It's breathtaking and beautiful and everything is the way God wants it to be. But it doesn't last very long before it all gets corrupted. And so from Genesis 3 all the way to Revelation 20 we have the story of God's rescue and recovery efforts to get the world back again and that involves sending his very own Son, Jesus, the hero of the story. He is the only way capable of recovering this world. And then in the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21-22, we're given the promise that God will get it all back again when he finally brings heaven to this earth.

When you think about it there are 1,189 chapters in the Bible and the world is only wonderful in four of them, the first two and the last two. In 1,185 chapters the world is a total mess. But for us, the first two chapters are history, they're over, and the last two chapters are prophecy, they're not here yet. So we find ourselves living in between, living right in the midst of the mess. And it seems to be taking forever. How long oh Lord?

In Genesis 1-2, God plants the Garden of Eden on the earth. In Revelation 21-22, God brings down the New Jerusalem, with a garden at its center, to this earth. In Eden, there's no sin, death or curse. On the new earth, there's no more sin, death, or curse. In Genesis, the redeemer is promised. In Revelation, the redeemer returns. Genesis tells us the story of paradise lost. Revelation tells us the story of paradise regained. And we finally come full circle. The ultimate Earth Day is yet to come!

Paul Marshall writes, "This world is our home. We are made to live here. It has been devastated by sin, but God plans to put it right. Hence, we look forward with joy to newly restored bodies and to living in a new restored heaven and earth. We can love this world because it is God's, and it will be healed, becoming at last what God intended from the beginning."

Jesus spoke of the renewal of all things when the apostle Peter pressed him and asked, "What's in all this for us? We've given up a lot to follow you Jesus!" You gotta' love his honesty! Peter always asks the question that everybody else is thinking, but nobody has the guts to ask.

In Matthew 19:27-28 we read, Peter answered him, "We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?" ²⁸Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

Jesus talked about renewing everything and when he did Peter and the other disciples would be handsomely rewarded with the privilege of playing leading roles in God's kingdom. Renewal and restoration are what Jesus' miracles were all about. Every one of the miracles of Jesus, except one which was the cursing of the fig tree, was about restoration and renewal, reversing the effects of the curse and giving us glimpses of the kingdom. He healed the sick, he made the lame to walk, the blind to see, the mute to speak, the deaf to hear. He calmed a life threatening storm, set people free from demonic oppression, fed the hungry, kept the party going by turning water into wine, brought money out of a fish's mouth, restored a severed ear, raised the dead. Jesus was all about setting creation free from the shackles of sin and evil. So life and joy and peace and wholeness and beauty were always the results of his miracles and a taste of what's ahead for all of us when heaven and earth become one.

One writer said, "Whatever sin has touched and polluted, God will redeem and cleanse. If redemption does not go as far as the curse of sin, then God has failed. Whatever the extent of the consequences of sin, so must the extent of redemption be."

Jesus talked about the renewal of all things. Peter talked about God restoring everything just like he promised through his holy prophets long ago. And what did the prophets promise?

Well, the prophet Isaiah has more to say about the restoration of all things then any one else in the Old Testament. And one of his most detailed descriptions is found in Isaiah 65. It is the Old Testament equivalent to Revelation 21. It's his inspired description of the new heaven and new earth that is coming some day.

Listen as I read it to you out of The Message translation against the backdrop of the tragic events of this week. Isaiah 65:17-25, "Pay close attention now. I'm creating new heavens and a new earth. All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain are things of the past, to be forgotten. Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I'm creating. I'll create Jerusalem as sheer joy, create my people as pure delight. I'll take joy in Jerusalem, take delight in my people. No more sounds of weeping in the city, no cries of anguish. No more babies dying in the cradle, or old people who don't enjoy a full lifetime. One-hundreth birthdays will be considered normal - anything less will seem like a cheat. They'll build houses and move in. They'll plant fields and eat what they grow. No more building a house that some outsider takes over. No more planting field that some enemy confiscates. For my people will be as long-lived as trees, my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work. They won't work and have nothing come of it, they won't have children snatched out from under them. For they themselves are plantings blessed by God, with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed. Before they call out, I'll answer. Before they've finished speaking, I'll have heard. Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow, lion and ox eat straw from the same trough, but snakes - they'll get a diet of dirt! Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill anywhere on my Holy Mountain," says the Lord.

Isaiah 60:16-22 add these words, "You'll know that I, God, am your Savior, your Redeemer, Champion of Jacob. I'll give you only the best - no more hand-me-downs! Gold instead of bronze, silver instead of iron, bronze instead of wood, iron instead of stones. I'll install Peace to run your country, make Righteousness your boss. There'll be no more stories of crime in your land, no more robberies, no more vandalism. You'll name your main street Salvation Way, and install Praise Park at the center of town. You'll have no more need of the sun by day nor the brightness of the moon at night. God will be your eternal light, your God will bathe you in splendor. Your sun will never go down, your moon will never fade. I will be your eternal light. Your days of grieving are over. All your people will live right and well, in permanent possession of the land. They're the green shoot that I planted, planted with my own hands to display my glory. The runt will become a great tribe, the weakling become a strong nation. I am God. At the right time I'll make it happen."

God is not finished with this world. And knowing that he wants to restore is some day should make us all want to take good care of it. We need to pay attention to environmental concerns. This world will be our home one day. We will live on this resurrected earth in our resurrected bodies with a resurrected and ruling King Jesus.

I like how Randy Alcorn describes it when he says, "If we want to know what our eternal home will be like, the best place to start is by looking around us. Don't close your eyes and try to imagine the unimaginable. Open your eyes and envision a new earth delivered from the curse."

"So look out a window. Take a walk. Talk with your friend. Use your God-given skills to paint or draw or build a shed or write a book. But imagine it - all of it - in its original condition. The happy dog with the wagging tail, not the snarling beast, beaten and starved. The flowers unwilted, the grass undying, the blue sky without pollution. People smiling and joyful, not angry, depressed, and empty. Close your eyes and envision the most beautiful place you've ever been - complete with palm trees, raging rivers, jagged mountains, waterfalls, or snow drifts."

"We may pass from the earth through death, but eventually we'll be back to live on the restored Earth. When we see a roaring waterfall, beautiful flowers, a breathtaking sunset, a wild animal in its native habitat, or the joy in the eyes of our pets when they see us, we sense that this world is - or at least was meant to be - our home."

"We are homesick for Eden. Every attempt at human progress has been an attempt to overcome what was lost in the fall. We long for a return to Paradise - a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day. The place Jesus is preparing for us is the new earth. Only then will we be truly home."

That's what's coming church, the greatest Earth Day ever. But it's not here yet. In the meantime, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

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