God's Goodness from Creation to New Creation

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God's Goodness from Creation to New Creation

Kingdom Perspective

November 2, 2023 • Don Willeman

Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

The Bible tells us that essential to God’s character is His goodness. God is good and, as Psalm 145 reminds us, “The Lord is good to all, and His mercies are over all His works.”

In the broad narrative of the Bible, this goodness is seen both in the original creation and in the in the new creation—the new heavens and the new earth.

In the Genesis account of creation, God repeatedly pronounces his divine benediction upon all He has made. At the end of each day, He declares it “good”, and then on that final day of creation “very good”! Interestingly, the word “good” is repeated a total of seven times, the number of fullness and completeness. The point? The earth is filled to overflowing with God’s goodness. The Hebrew word for good (tov, as in the Jewish toast “mazel tov”, “good luck”) means pleasant, fitting, and beautiful. It is everything as it should be. God’s dynamic fullness and harmony can be seen everywhere in creation.

Likewise, we see this abounding goodness at the end of the Bible in the renewed creation. In Revelation 21 and 22, after the banishment of sin, we find a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1) with God crying out from His throne “Behold I am making all thing new” (Revelation 21:5). And from that throne of God comes the “river of the water of life” that feeds the “tree of life” that will be for the “healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:1-2).

Do you get the picture? In the original creation and in the final re-creation, God is a God overflowing with goodness to His creation.

The first and final image of God presented is not a court room of justice, but a throne room of generosity.

God was good long before He had to execute justice on evil.
And God will be good long after He is done executing justice on evil.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
~Genesis 1:26-31 (ESV)

Graduating from the Gospel?

December 28, 2023 • Don Willeman

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. Over the past hundred years or so, Christians in the West have tended to view the Christian life as steps in a process. Like a manufacturing process, Christians are “developed” step-by-step. Now, there are some aspects of this paradigm that can be helpful, as it recognizes the fact that living the Christian life is indeed a process. It is a “walk” that involves living our lives day-by-day before the face of God. However, it fails in at least one critical point. It usually places believing the gospel as merely the first step in that process. So, for example, it goes something like this… The first step is to believe the gospel. The second step is to understand the basics of the Christian life. The third step is to follow Jesus as a disciple. The fourth step is to… etc., etc. Now, here’s the problem. This way of thinking puts believing Jesus as merely the first step. However, that’s not how the Bible speaks of it. Believing the gospel is an ongoing aspect of living the Christian life. Believing in Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection informs and transforms every moment of my life. The gospel is not just the first step, but the interpretive grid and power for every step. As Zambian pastor Conrad Mbewe puts it: “Christians never graduate from the gospel.” ~Conrad Mbewe, pastor in Lusaka, Zambia The moment we get beyond the gospel is the moment we get beyond Jesus. And a Christianity without Christ’s saving and sanctifying work is no Christianity at all. Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective. “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” ~ 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (ESV)

Jesus’s Radical Love

December 26, 2023 • Don Willeman

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The gospel is good news for sinners. This is both its attraction and its irritation. If I think of myself as a pretty good guy who only needs a little self-improvement here or there, then I am going to be offended at the notion that the Son of God had to die on a bloody cross to take away my sin. I can accept the notion of Jesus as my self-help guru. However, I cannot stomach the notion that my sin is so bad it caused the suffering and death of God Himself. I am going to chafe at the idea that, as Jesus put it, I “must be born again” and I must “deny [my] self and take up the cross daily”. Why does a person who is basically good need to take such drastic measures? However, if, on the other hand, Jesus is the savior of the helpless sinners (Romans 5:6)—if sin is so pervasive and overpowering that “without Him [I] can do nothing” (John 15)—then the suffering and death of the Son of God on the cross for me is going to be the best and sweetest news I’ve ever heard. Listen to the beautiful words of author, poet and hip-hop artist Jackie Hill Perry: “Jesus had the guilty in mind when He hung high and stretched out wide.... He, bare-bodied and face set on joy, became as a slaughtered lamb underneath the wrath of God... Didn't He know that wrath was mine? It even had my name on it. But He knew... Without asking my permission, a good God had come to my rescue.” Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.” ~ Romans 5:6-11 (NASB) References: Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was and Who God Has Always Been by Jackie Hill Perry (B&H Books: 2018). Thank you for listening to and supporting The Kingdom Perspective! The Kingdom Perspective is a ministry of Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. To hear more episodes you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. To donate or to find out more about the ministry and resources offered by Christ Redeemer Church visit http://www.christredeemerchurch.org.

Jesus, Savior of Sinners

December 14, 2023 • Don Willeman

Transcript: Hello, this is Pastor Don Willeman of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective. The only way you can come to Jesus is as a sinner. As a matter of fact, if you come to Jesus as anything other than the Savior of your sins, you will not find the true Jesus. Rather, you will find at best a grotesque caricature of Him. Jesus is not the mascot for your favorite political or social cause. He is not your guru, your personal life coach, giving you advice on how to have a happier, more fulfilled middle-class life. He is not your divine barista, serving up personal happiness at the McJesus Café. No, Jesus is the creator God come to save you, giving up His life for your sin on a bloody Roman cross. Jesus is the exalted one who has dominion over all things. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the Creator and Redeemer of all things. All things were made by him, through Him and for him (Colossians 1:15-20; Revelation 21:1-4). He is the eternal judge of heaven and earth, who Himself was judged for His people. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Certainly, any caricature we make of Jesus will speak to something of His nature—after all this is how caricatures work. Nonetheless, Jesus is not defined by our culture-bound distortions. Jesus did not come to take your side. He came to take over. Jesus did not come to help you with “your life.” He came to give you His life. He did not come to conquer your problems or your enemies. He came to conquer you with His love. Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective. Thank you for listening to and supporting The Kingdom Perspective! The Kingdom Perspective is a ministry of Christ Redeemer Church of Hanover, NH. To hear more episodes you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts. To donate click here or to find out more about the ministry and resources offered by Christ Redeemer Church visit http://www.christredeemerchurch.org.