Creation and Salvation
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Introduction: So, what we understand so far is this. God is holy, or as the seraphim put it He is, “holy, holy, holy.” In fact he is so holy that his holiness cannot be contained and the result is that the whole earth is full of his holiness being seen and admired and we call this seeing and admiring of God’s holiness glory. Well then, the question is, how holy is He? How rare is He? How glorious or valuable is He? Well, since God is the only one of a kind Being from whom and for whom and to whom are all things, He is of infinite value and is the foundational reality of all things.
We also understand that, being made in God’s image, we were created in order to display His holiness. We were made to live in such a way that we display God’s moral completeness and perfection, but in Adam all men are born dead in sin. As a result, we have all forsaken this infinitely satisfying fountain from which we were meant to drink and have gone our own way delighting ourselves to dig in the cistern of the world and suck on the pleasures of the world, hoping to find joy where it can never be found. So, we ended with this question? How do I thirst for this fountain? How do I thirst for this fountain when my flesh is so naturally drawn to the cheap, temporary pleasures of the world? How do I hunger and thirst for righteousness? We all want to know this. We all want to be satisfied.
Which brings us to God’s plan.
In Creation
In Creation
Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I have created for My glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”
When God says He creates for His glory He does not mean that in creating He becomes glorious. Instead, He means that His intention in creating is that His glory would be displayed and communicated. In other words, God is so glorious that in eternity past the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit say to one other, “ Let us create.” Why? So that that glory that exists can be seen. That brings us to something we have already mentioned.
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God is great! Because God is great He has filled his earth with images of Himself so that His greatness would be communicated throughout all the world. Sadly, man sinned, and in sinning man exchanged the glory of the Creator for the glory of the created. The glory that was meant to be communicated and seen and admired and talked about was now ignored for a lesser glory.
From Eternity Past
From Eternity Past
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Salvation was God’s plan all along. Have you ever asked yourself why? Why save us? Why save people who are infinitely disappointing? Paul makes this much clear: God chose the plan of salvation as the method for displaying His glory and in seeing His glory that we would praise Him. This is God’s eternal purpose in salvation, that we would see His glory and praise Him! Let me ask you this: how long does salvation last? Yes, forever.
And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Isn’t that staggering. God made man in His image and man scarred the infinitely worthy image of God, but God, who is rich in mercy, turns right around and sets a plan in motion to redeem us so that we could see His glory and praise Him forever! This is good news! Look at what Scripture says.
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
The clear teaching of Scripture is that the plan for salvation exists in order that you would have the power to see the glory of God. The gospel opens up blind eyes! You were made to see His glory, but sin has blinded you to it. Christ offers hope. He offers the hope that you can be born again. Not born with the desires of the flesh, NO! You can be born again with the desires of the Spirit. That’s the gift! We can finally, come home. We can finally come out from the dark cave of sin and be reminded that there is a Sun! We can finally stop, like dogs, returning to our vomit because we are so blind that we cannot see there is anything better. We can finally, because of Christ, see that which is worth seeing!
This was the purpose and the will of God all along. The plan was not primarily to free us from hell. That is an added benefit. The plan was to free us from blindness so that we could be free to behold the light. The plan of God was that you could be reborn to Behold Your God!
Conclusion: So, we started tonight with this question: how do I thirst for this fountain when my flesh is so naturally drawn to the cheap, temporary pleasures of the world? Or we could ask it this way: how can I see the beauty of the glory of God as surpassing the value of all others things when I am, because of sin, blind to it? The desperate cry of our heart is: how can I see when I am blind?
The answer is found in and
Everyone who is called by My name,
Whom I have created for My glory;
I have formed him, yes, I have made him.”
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
Conclusion:
knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
As we have already
For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.
So, the blindness we have is due to the love that we have for things other than God. We have willfully forgotten God’s majesty and God’s justice. If we are to see, we must humbly ask to see.
“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
If we ask to see, God promises to give us sight!
Which brings us to another question: When we ask to see and God opens our eyes, how can we see God in His fullness? In other words, if I don’t want to be condemned and so I turn to the glorious light and it is that light that dispels darkness and sin, how can I get as much of it as I can? How can I drink so deeply from the fountain that I not only see, but so that every day darkness is dispelled from my life? Come back next week and find out!