Not many ministers in the room were offered
a peat bog as part of their compensation, but it was one of the joys of being the most
northerly minister in Her Majesty's domain, and left an indelible impression on my life. I mean, the island on which I serve, not the
peat bog, since I didn't know how you work a peat bog. And most of you don't know what a peat bog
is. I think we should just depart from the subject
of peat bogs. But the island was indeed called Unst. Now, we've had a long and thrilling day. We had some moments of excitement even in
the question and answer session. And, I'm going to ask you to gird up the loins
of your minds once again this evening. And if you will, turn in Scripture to the
opening chapter of the Bible in Genesis 1. We'll read a few verses, and then some more
verses in Genesis 2. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, our overarching theme
is overcoming the world and the title I've been allotted for this session has been framed
in fairly familiar words, too, as I believe they are a quotation from a hymn, "This is
My Father's World." "In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness
was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said 'let there be light and there
was light.' And God saw that the light was good and God
separated the light from the darkness." And so on, through the beginning of verse
26, when God has punctuated time with the wonders of His creation, and seen that everything
is good. 'Then God said, (verse 26) "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."' In some ways Genesis 1 is the view of creation
from eternity, and Genesis 2 brings us to a different camera angle and begins to speak
about the story of history. And this is introduced in chapter 2 in verse
4. "These are the generations of the heavens
and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the
heavens." And in verse 8, "The Lord God planted a garden
in Eden in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed, and out of the ground
the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for
food. And the tree of life was in the midst of the
garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." And in verse 15, "The Lord took the man and
put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying
you may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. Then the Lord God said it is not good that
the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So out of the ground the Lord God formed every
beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he
would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature
that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock, to the
birds of the heavens, to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper
fit for him, so the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept took one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from
the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said 'this at last is bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was
taken out of man.' Therefore a man shall leave his father and
his mother, hold fast to his wife. They shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and
were not ashamed." I've come over the years in reading the New
Testament to believe that almost certainly, not least because there is only one apostle
who ever refers to what we in this room profess to be there is only one apostle who ever speaks
of believers as Christians. It is not a term, but passed through the Apostle
Paul's lips as he dictated letters or through his writing instrument in the letters that
he personally wrote. We have no evidence whatsoever from the New
Testament that the Apostle Paul actually ever called somebody a Christian. And that on the three occasions, the term
is used in the New Testament, it is almost certainly at the beginning as it is becoming
again today, a pejorative, demeaning term. Christ's ones, spat out in the face of believers. And there is something, in many ways, I think,
to some of us, God willing, to many of us here, in the midst of the pain and inner burdens
that we feel in the characteristics engrossing our society today. There is also something of a thrill that passes
through the Christian in an antagonistic world to be able to read the New Testament with
fresh lenses in his or her spectacles, and understand that there is a call today to live
the kind of Christian life that is actually described for us in the pages of Scripture. And biblically instructed and clear-thinking
Christians, will therefore in our age as well as in any other age, be particularly characterized
by joy and thankfulness and not by complaint and lamentation and withdrawal from the world. Christians will understand that the outpouring
of the Lord Jesus expressed in the text that governs the theme of our conference together. That our Lord Jesus in the midst of the crisis
for His disciples was filling them with a sense of joy, filling them with a sense of
divine peace, filling them with a profound sense of the glory of God. So, thankfulness, joyfulness, a sense of the
victory of Jesus Christ are keynotes of those who are in this world demeaned by being described
as Christians. And we understand, many of us, I am sure,
that all of this is undergirded by an amazing principle that is given to us from the beginning
of Scripture to the end of Scripture. That this world with all its hazards is actually
a safe place exclusively for Christian people to live in. That we understand from Scripture that our
God, our Father works everything together in the universe for the good of His people,
for those who have been called according to His purpose. That our lives are sacred and secure until
God's time for us to be called home has come. And so, as we walk out into the world as the
author of this hymn, "This is My Father's World," apparently frequently used to do,
we are able to say no matter what the day may bring, what persecution there may be,
what opposition we may face, what demeaning may be our experience, I am going out today
into my Father's world. And we're trying to examine this whole theme
of living the Christian life in an alien and antagonistic world learning what it means
to be alien residents in this world by thinking 'Yes,' apologetically, about how do we analyze
the movements in society and respond to them. Yes, as we shall do, God willing, in the morning
with Dr. Godfrey's address on Athanasius, historically what did it mean for our fathers
to stand against the world. And in these other addresses we are wanting
to think about this biblically. And the task assigned to me as I understand
it, is to come back to some absolutely basic foundations for living the Christian life
in a world like this. Where the gospel is demeaned, where Christians
are marginalized and where there seem to be dark clouds on the horizon, so that we are
able to walk out into the world with our heads held high, absolutely surrounded by a sense
of dignity and other worldly peace as we move into this world. So, that we appear to men and women, to be
men and women who live as though this actually were our Father's world. And I want us to try and think a little about
this together in terms of the teaching that we are given here in the opening chapters
of the Bible. So important for us, isn't it, to have a big
framework of reference to catch the big picture. They say, don't they, that over the last several
decades the most common title for poetry written by teenagers is "Who am I." And it's one of the glories of the Christian
gospel, that right from the beginning of Scripture to the end of Scripture, it brings to bear
upon us the answer to that question. And it is a most striking and glorious thing
for a young or older Christian to live in this world no matter what our vacation and
vocation may be, as somebody who knows who he or she is because they understand that
they live in the world that has been created by their Father. Many of the great philosophers certainly of
the more recent centuries have suggested in their writings. Not necessarily Christian thinkers, but people
who have tried to take reality seriously, who have said, you know the most fundamental
question of all philosophical questions. You get this kind of thing in Leibnitz, and
more recently in Heidegger and other thinkers like Ludwig Wittgenstein. The most fundamental question of all, is why
is it that there is something and not nothing. Ludwig Wittgenstein confided once in a friend
that there were moments in his life where he simply felt overwhelmed by the reality
that there is actually a reality. And in their own way our great scientists
have been trying to probe the same issue. In public they may say to us all we're interested
in is describing the reality that is there. But you notice especially with some of the
greatest thinkers, with the most extraordinary, especially mathematical, and physical skills,
I mean, skills in understanding the varied operations of the universe that there is a
drive that lies behind them. And that drive is to get back as it where
to some kind of alpha moment or alpha explanation of things that will allow us to continue to
speak about a universe. The very notion of a universe indicates coherence,
it indicates system, it actually indicates reason, which is why some of these thinkers
have become so concerned that the barren fruit of their godless thinking must mean that they
can no longer speak about a universe. And therefore, the whole fabric of the ground
underneath their thinking begins to shake and tremble and quake. And the most amazing thing in the world to
me, I think about it so often, is that the youngest, the newest, the least taught Christian
believer who opens the pages of Scripture knows the answer to the question. It's not fully so arrogant enough to say that
they know as much as some of the great minds of history. But that they know something about everything
and it is the key to all, that all things have their being, because as these opening
verses of Genesis teach us in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's not an accident that those words open
the Bible. That's the key to answering the question. Why is there something and not nothing and
the key to answering the question who am I in the midst of this extraordinary cosmos. And so, the simplest believer from the beginning
of Scripture is given the clue to everything in the world. This is my Father's world; He is the one who
has made it. That's not incidentally first-rate poetry
is it? But it is first-rate theology. And it is, don't you think in this world in
which we live, the most wonderfully stabilizing reality in our Christian lives that our God
has made the universe, and that He has told us in His Word that His purpose and desire
from the beginning, is that in everything He does He would display Himself to be nothing
less than a Father. This is not just our God's world; this is
my Father's world. And I want us to take a few minutes this evening
to try and explore from a biblical point of view, just exactly what does it mean then
to say on the basis of Scripture this is my Father's world. Because of course the Scripture uses that
title for God in several different dimensions in a series of concentric circles with distinct
nuances. And there are three of these nuances, three
of these concentric circles that are particularly relevant for us I think as Christians. The first is the one that is emphasized in
Genesis and frequently emphasized in the pages of the Old Testament Scriptures; it's the
emphasis that we express whenever we say the Apostles Creed. We believe in God the Father Almighty. The Father who has brought all things into
being. So, at one level when we speak about Him as
our Father, we mean that He is the Father of the creation He has brought into being. And this is what the opening pages of the
Bible are intended to teach us. Now, in my one view the opening pages of the
Bible say extraordinarily little about the mechanisms by which God brought things into
being. It gives us these basic descriptions of God
speaking, but it tells us nothing about the physics and the chemistry involved in the
speaking of God that brought into being the wonders of the world. And I think there's a very simple explanation
for that; it seems to me to be quite obvious. And that is that if God had given me a book
of scientific equations of the principles of physics and chemistry that he had employed
in bringing this world into being, I at least would have had to be forced to close the book. My own conviction is that there is not a scientist
in the universe who wouldn't to a certain degree also share that. Don't you understand how often scientists
say we're just telling it the way it is. And I want to say to that, but what I see
there is not an equation. So, no, you're using human language, you're
often using metaphor, and you are usually engaged in philosophy in your attempts to
describe how things are, and what they are. And, that's not the same thing as telling
me what reality is. I remember an occasion, a colleague that Dr.
Godfrey had, and I enjoyed in seminary whose first doctorate was in mathematics, he had
taught mathematics, he had then gone on to study theology. He came back from a study leave and part of
the deal was you would give a report to the faculty. And he was giving his report to the faculty,
he'd been interested in questions of the engagement of science and biblical theology. And in the course of his presentation he had
some PowerPoint presentations, and this vast equation flashed up on the screen filled about,
60% of the screen. All these funny Greek squiggles and bits up
and down, and the whole room full of PhDs burst into near hysterical laughter. And our friend said, "Now that," he said,
"is the equation for the Milky Way." And as soon as the word 'way' was out of his
mouth another PowerPoint appeared on the screen, a picture of the Milky Way by courtesy of
the Hubble telescope. He said, "Now, that is the Milky Way." You understand that in the very nature of
the case, our science is descriptive and by nature it is always reductionistic. I find myself laughing at the equation and
full of awe at the picture of the Milky Way. Even I in my limited understanding knew that
this was just some kind of human metaphorical language to try to describe this awesome wonder. And of course, the reason why unbelieving
scientists are so fascinated with these things is because it protects them from the sense
of awe and wonder. It protects them from the sense that rises
within even their unbelieving souls that says somebody needs to be praised for this. But they have nobody to praise. There is nowhere for the thankfulness and
awe and amazement and wonder of their soul to go. They have to suppress it and repress it. And so often as you will notice in the media
when they were interviewed, they would seek to do everything they could to prevent interviewers
from probing into that sense of wonder and desire to say thank you for this. The very kind of thing that Paul speaks about
in Romans 1, and what Genesis 1 and 2 is saying to us in its marvelous way I think among the
many other things it's saying to us, is this, here is God telling you something about the
marvel of His creation. And it is your privilege because He gives
you dominion. It is your privilege with that as your framework
to go forth and explore the cosmos that He was given to you. So that no matter what your vocation may be,
for example, in the hard sciences or in the life sciences, to understand that in everything
you do you are moving around God's creation and as Kepler the great astronomer said, "You
are trying in your human language and limited ability to think God's thoughts after Him." Remember how one of the hymns says that there
is something that appears in every hue, that Christless eyes have never seen. And it's such a wonderful thing that Genesis
is telling us here that God who has created this has created it as a Father. And marvelous to see how He does it. I mean, this is so obvious in the passage
isn't it, that He brings into being this primeval stuff. It's very unusually described isn't it? In verses 1 and 2, God creates the heavens
and the earth. The earth was without form and void. And darkness was over the face of the deep. What was that first act of creation like? What was an earth that was formless and void
and dark like? And then this marvelous sentence that is so
reminiscent, isn't it, for New Testament Christians of the way in which Luke, who is so interested
in Old Testament history the way in which we read in the conception of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that the Spirit of God was brooding over the darkness of the womb of the Virgin
Mary to bring into being the head of the new creation. As it were, redoing and reworking what He
had done at the beginning of creation. And so, in a way these are signals that lead
us to expect that what will follow from this will be in this marvelous design of God that
where there has been darkness there will be a flood of light, where that has been formlessness
there will be form. And you can almost see the way in which God
begins to create form of this mass of stuff, how He separates light from the darkness,
how He separates water from land, how He then begins to fill these various aspects, compartments
of His creation with creatures that are appropriate to their environment. Birds with wings that fly, giraffes with necks
that stretch to the trees, extraordinary creatures that live under the water, hidden creatures,
creatures man has never seen because He is doing all this for His pleasure and for His
glory and for the joy of His Son. This is to be His Son's playroom as it were. These are to be not soft toys but living animals
in the playroom of His beloved Son. And our privilege is that He lets us into
the playroom. Did you ever have this experience, perhaps
you were brought up somewhere when you were—you looked over at your neighbor, and little Johnny
always seemed to have more than you had, and then there were times when you could go into
his playroom and He would share his toys. And this is what God does as He fills this
world with objects and creatures of extraordinary beauty. But when you stand back from all this, I think
it becomes clear what it is that God is doing. And some of the connections in the Bible I
think make this even clearer. The connections there seem to be between creation
and then the creation of the tabernacle and the creation of the temple. And when you get right to the end of the Bible,
which in my day in school was always the place to go if you wanted to know the answers to
the questions that arose at the front of the book. It eventually dawns on you that what God has
actually been creating here is a cathedral. Yes, there was a tabernacle and a temple,
but what He was creating here was a cathedral that was full of light. And in that cathedral the most amazing congregation
of birds flying in the air, in the upper choir chamber of the cathedral. And these fish and sea creatures that, as
it were, played around at the bottom of the cathedral. And then the staff of the cathedral, these
great animals that roamed through the vegetation that God had created. He has brought a congregation into being. That's why right at the end of the book of
psalms, these great psalms of praise, what do they do; they call on everything that has
breath to praise the Lord. And the birds of the air have breath. The fish of the sea of breath, the animals
of the fields have breath. And so, in Psalm 148, the psalmist is calling
upon all the members of the congregation to come, and in unison sing the praises of the
Creator Father who has brought them into being, and this is why the psalter comes to its end
with this cry, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord." Except there's something missing isn't there? At least if you're Presbyterian there's something
missing. And we've early indications in the Bible that
the early church was Presbyterian, Moses had elders, and all the rest of it, so—
And of course, they are reading this in the light of the exodus. What's the language Presbyterians use here? There's a vacancy. There is a vacancy in this cathedral. There is the need for a senior minister in
this cathedral. And so, as the climax of Genesis 1 emerges
what's the story? Here amazingly God at it were has looked into
this stuff that He has created like a great sculptor and He has seen what He will bring
forth from it. So, in a sense He looks outside of Himself
in order to bring forth the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and the great
sea creatures and all that surrounds them. But He says if we're going to have a minister
in this church it's going to need to be somebody who is made in our image and in our likeness. And He will be the one so like us in miniature,
so able to understand us in miniature, so marked by so much of what we experience as
the ever-blessed Trinity, Creator Father, brooding Spirit, speaking Word. That this senior minister will be able to
together under the authority of the Word, the praises of the people of God for the glory
of our name. I, you know, there must've been something,
if one can say this about the sheer mystery of the inner life of God, there must have
been such fun in the Trinity, such joy in the Trinity, such thrill in the Trinity, that
creating someone (not some animal or something), but someone beyond the Trinity who at the
same time had a likeness to the God in whose image He had been made and was able to lead
the choir and congregation of that creation so that everything that has life and breath
would be able to praise the Lord. And so, He comes and He makes man as His own
image. He is the Father of the creation He brings
into being. But more particularly now, focusing now on
this man and woman He is making in the wonder of His creation. He is not only the Father of the creation
He brings into being, He is the Father of—notice the language—the sons whom He makes in His
image. Now, I use that term sons not in the gender
sense but in the biblical sense. The sons who will inherit, the meek who will
inherit the earth. And He's giving the earth to them as their
inheritance. He spreads it all out before them, doesn't
he? But it's the language of being children that
I think is so significant here. He's Father as creator, but He's also Father
of children. I say that for a couple of reasons. One because I think that is part of the point
that Luke makes, isn't it, in his genealogy of Jesus just before Jesus' baptism. That he's describing who Jesus is and he traces
Jesus back not like Matthew to Abraham, but right back to Adam. And he traces Jesus back to Adam in terms
of the relationship between sons and fathers. And then he describes Adam as the Son of God. Not the Son of God in the eternal Trinity,
but the Son of God in the miniature of creation. And this I think is undoubtedly the reason
why when you turn over a couple of pages in your Bible, and we are told as it were of
a new beginning in creation, we're told that there is this amazing event takes place in
Genesis chapter 5 and in verses 1 to 3, "God created man. He made him in the likeness of God, and then
when Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he fathered a son as his likeness." Now, you understand what's being said here
in the work of the Great Creator He's making a Son in His likeness just as part of the
privilege of the image is to make a Son in His likeness. So, this language of likeness to God in the
Scriptures, this language of likeness to God is family language. I have three sons and a daughter and it happens
marginally to her irritation that so many people when they meet me then say to her,
you look so like your dad. For some strange reason they seem to think
that's a compliment, but she doesn't really regard it as a compliment about the relationship
to the father that she loves. But she is in apparently my likeness. And this is what Genesis is saying to us. That when God makes the miniature, when the
Trinity say "Let Us make man as Our image and Our likeness," They really mean "let Us
make them with the kind of relationship to Us that will reflect the particular relationship
there is in the bond of the Holy Spirit between Myself as Father and the eternal Word as Son." That's the most amazing thing. It's our heavenly connection isn't? And, the whole passage then into Genesis 2,
goes on to express to us what this means. It means, for example, if Genesis 2:7 is anything
to go by, that He makes the man—let's just call these ones 'the man.' He makes the man in Genesis 2 for communion
with Himself. This is why you can't really understand Genesis
1 unless you read alongside Genesis 2. Genesis 1 says let's make man as our image,
and so He makes Him as His image male and female. But Genesis 2 tells us how He did it. And the language clearly is what we would
call anthropomorphic. But we mustn't think anthropomorphic means
it isn't really true. What anthropomorphic means is we are describing
this in human terms but it's something even more amazing than that. And the picture is of God actually stooping
down into the dust, into the slime. So, do you think it's kind of crazy that people
say, as though they were going to surprise us, you know there are bits of apes that are
like bits of man. Yes, we're made of the same stuff. I didn't know you Christians believed that. Oh yes, we believe that. We've believed it for thousands of years because
we've read about in the Bible. We're all made of the dust. But God has come down into the dust. He didn't just speak into the dust, He comes—what
can that mean. And He makes this man. It's almost as though Genesis is saying to
us, you need to understand that there is an intimacy here in the creation of the man and
then of the woman that exists in the creation of nothing else. And then God does this, which is to me so
amazing and so profoundly poignant and moving. He kisses the dirt into life. Dare we even put it this way that once God
has created man, there's dust on His face. This is an expression of His love. It's all—and again, I say this is anthropomorphic
language, but the reality is much greater, not lesser than the picture. That He has made us for the most intimate
communion with Himself. He's kissed us into life. It's an expression of the most amazing love
that He has for us that He's created us for face-to-face communion with Himself. And this is the message of the New Testament
isn't it? It shows us the glory of what has been lost. It speaks about the Word who is face to face
with the Father, coming and being face to face with us, so that we might be transformed
into the likeness of the Son, so that we might be able to see God face to face. Again, because He's made us for this intimate
communion with Himself, and then because He is a God of infinite, eternal, tri-personal
companionship. He makes the man and the woman for creative
companionship. Oh, this is the tragedy of being a professing
secular humanist when your child is born. That you participate in the creation of another
human being, someone who is like yourself, and you are awestruck by the wonder of the
privilege. It is too much for any man or any woman to
take in, but God has made us for creative companionship because He's made us as His
likeness as well as His image. He wants—if He's going to have glorious
fellowship with us, there are things that we need to be able to share with Him, things
that we can talk about with Him as a father and a son so that we can say to Him, it must
be—I worship and adore you, because you're the creator of everything, and I think I understand
the joy of that to you, because you've given me the privilege of "Oh my God, how good You
have been to me of creating another human being. And if you're a Christian, of creating another
human being who will last for all eternity." And that's what He wants. He not only wants intimacy with us, but He
wants us to have creative companionship, and this is one illustration of it. And then He gives them this abundant provision,
this provision for everything here. If you want to be an astronomer there's provision. You go and try and build a spaceship there's
provision. If you want to build an ark, there's wood. If you want to examine tiny insects, they're
there. If you want to grow things you can grow things. You want to make things you can make things,
because He's made provision for our mental, intellectual, and yes also our physical satisfaction. Every single tree that He makes is beautiful. Every fruit-bearing tree, it looks delicious
to the taste. It's His provision for us. And then not only provision for our satisfaction
but provision for our growth in relationship with Him. And that's the significance of these trees
isn't it, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which looks like the other trees
apparently. We're told it's described in the same way. It looks—it's beautiful and its fruit looks
delicious. It's like these other trees, but He has said
don't eat the fruit of that tree because He's saying to the man and to the woman 'No.' You see, He's a father. He's saying 'No, dear ones I want you to show
me that you love me by refusing to eat the fruit of that tree for only one reason. Not because it's ugly fruit, not because it's
a twisted tree, but because your father told you not to eat the fruit.' And you going to say to one another, 'Well
honey, has father ever told us to do anything for our harm? And what happens, every time you're tempted
and you say, "But father has another way for me," and you walk past the tree, you're stronger. It's like the hymn, "Each vict'ry will help
you some other to win." And so, they're there to grow. Just like later on, our Lord Jesus has tests
and He grows through the tests. And through the tests His father's favor apparently
grows. He grew in wisdom and stature and in favor
with God. The father loved Him, but then the father
saw how obedient He was, and the father said to Him I've always loved you, but how I love
you for this obedience? So that as I sometimes think, as His Son died
in obedience on the cross, the heavenly Father was quietly saying to Himself, it would have
been too much for the angels of heaven to understand perhaps. "If ever I loved you, my Jesus 'tis now." And he made us for this, for this spiritual
growth and this spiritual fellowship with Him, and He gave us this remarkable vocation
of having dominion. I love those words that Kepler said in great
days, he says, "We astronomers are priests of the highest God, in regard to the book
of nature, it therefore benefits us and befits us to be thoughtful not of the glory of our
minds, but rather, above all else, of the glory of God." It's all created to make us see what a gracious
and generous heavenly Father He really is. And He makes this man and this woman to be
the gardeners of creation. I think Americans often get this better than
Scottish people. I first brought my family here to the United
States in, I think 1981. We were in a home, I think it was in Florida,
and I said to our hosts we had three very small boys and a tiny daughter. I said to our host, "Would it be all right
if my boys go and play in your garden?" And I saw this look of absolute horror come
over the wife's face. It wasn't as though my boys wearing kilts
or blue paint or anything like that. And then eventually I just kind of remember
the difference in language. As far as I was concerned the garden's the
bit of grass at the back of the house. As far as she was concerned the garden was
her roses, and all the rest of it, and the idea of our boys playing in the garden. See, I didn't distinguish between what you
Americans call the garden and the yard. But in this respect, Americans are right. Because when God brings this world into its
position for them there is both garden and yard. Now, I sometimes think when people read Genesis
chapters 1 and 2, they don't grasp this. The whole world was not yet garden. God planted it; this is a father. He said I want you to be a gardener. And so, I'm going to give you a little start;
now you do the rest. And so, they're to extend this garden I think
in every conceivable sense, horticulturally, scientifically, in every conceivable sense. This is why they need to multiply and increase,
because their task is to extend the borders of this garden to the ends of the earth. That's why the Bible ends with such a garden,
where the whole place is temple. There is no temple in the new earth because
the whole place is temple. And that was the challenge that they were
given, the life that was set before them. And He had made everything in the cosmos so
that that could be true. Some of you will know the name of a very famous
English mathematician/scientist, John Polkinghorne. He was professor of, I think astronomical
physics at the University of Cambridge. And at the pinnacle, a world thinker and leader. And when he was about fifty-something he went
into the Christian ministry. And it was sensational. This enormous intellect going into the Christian
ministry. What is the meaning of this sacrifice of the
intellect in pursuing a ministry, and BBC, I think it was sent—rather naively sent
along a young reporter who had obviously no idea how brilliant this man was. Or how clearly committed he was to being a
reasonable, thinking Christian. And he said, "But surely professor Polkinghorne,
somebody like you realize is the vastness of the universe. You've all these mathematical equations, how
can you possibly profess a Christian faith that places man at the center of things?" And, I remember Polkinghorne saying very graciously
to him, "I don't think you understand that it's the vastness of the universe that is
the necessary prerequisite for the existence of man." Somebody said to me the other day that they
had read somewhere that if all the bees died in the world it would only be a few years
before the world would cease to be fruitful. It's as magnificently balanced as that, and
He creates us in the broader sense of the term to be the gardeners. To finish the job. And incidentally that's why when Christ finishes
the job, He tells His disciples to go and garden the world with the gospel. That's why the gospel promise is that the
meek shall inherit the earth. And this is the privilege of knowing that
this is our Heavenly Father's world. Well, that leads us and just for a moment
to consider this third circumference. Yes, God is the Father who brings creation
into being; God is the Father who makes a Son in His image. And thirdly, God is a Father who continues
to love the prodigal. We read in chapter 3 now of the way in which
the man and the woman stray from the command of God and the family of God and bring down
in their train the whole human race. A curse comes on the earth. Instead of being the gardener who has dominion
over the yard and its dust, Adam actually becomes part of the dust over which he was
intended to have dominion. That's the tragedy of death. That everybody we lay in the grave that will
become part of the dust of the earth was intended to be the gardener of creation in all its
multi-dimensions. And although God gives His promise, the story
gets worse. And we have the flood and God gives this amazing
promise that He's going to hold the thing in being because He is going to fulfill the
promise of Genesis 3:15. And things get even worse. There is a Babel, a desire as we see today
to climb up to heaven and tear God down from the heavens. And we'll come to how God remedies this tomorrow,
but let me just fast forward to give us a glimpse to just to look beyond the curtain
of the future and tear back the curtain and get a glimpse of the wonderful thing that
God does for His prodigals in the sending of His Son Jesus Christ. You remember that day, early morning, there
is a woman, comes to the garden tomb. And she senses the presence of another as
she is both awestruck and paralyzed really by the fact that the tomb is empty. And we're told what was going through her
mind. And then we're told words that Jesus spoke
to her. What was going through her mind was, she supposed
Him to be the gardener and so she said, 'If you've taken his body away, tell me where
you've put it.' And then Jesus says to us, 'Mary, don't hold
onto me. I'm going to ascend to my Father and your
Father, to my God and your God.' I sometimes think as we read these verses,
we make three mistakes. The first mistake is the last mistake. We think that Jesus is distinguishing in His
words there between our relationship and His relationship. But no, what He's saying there is that He
has come as the second man and the last Adam, to bring us back to where the first man and
the first and was. To be able to call Him what you know no single
individual believer in the Old Testament ever really said when they came before God, you
are my father. But the other mistakes were mistakes that
we make as well as Mary makes. She was wrong on two counts. He wasn't the gardener and He hadn't taken
the body, because He had taken the body, and He was actually the gardener. And that day when He stepped out of the tomb
into that little garden that in the marvel of God's economic providence, He was saying
almost as it were to His Son. Just as there was a garden at the beginning,
there's going to be a garden at the new beginning. And as He steps out, He truly is the gardener. Everything as He says in the Great Commission
is now under His dominion. We don't yet see as Hebrew says everything
under man's dominion, but we do see Jesus crowned with glory and honor because He has
suffered for His people and risen in order to lead many sons to glory. And that's our privilege. That's why we can go out of this, what we
call, sanctuary, and know that we are safe in the world outside, because this is my Father's
world and we praise Him for it. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this
day that you've given to us and for the blessings of your Word and the privilege of being with
fellow believers and being strengthened in and through the word of the gospel. For the council that you give to us, the strengthening
that you provide for us, the blessings that you offer to us. But tonight, as though we were one great multiplied,
thousand family of brothers and sisters we come into your presence and we are bold to
call you our Heavenly Father. With all our hearts we worship you. Thank you for the privileges you have given
to us, for helping us to understand who you are and therefore to know who we are. And we yield ourselves with joy that we may
serve you to the praise of your glorious grace. And this we pray in your Son, our Savior's
name, amen.
