God’s Creation Restored

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We’re going to be in Romans chapter 5 this morning. Romans chapter 5 and also Revelation chapter 21. So if you want to mark both of those places in your Bibles, we’ll look at both of those this morning.

Today is my last message in the series I’ve been doing on God’s timeless story to sort of supplement what we’re doing on Wednesday nights with evangelism training with the program The Story and learning how to share the gospel as a story that people can understand and relate to. As I’ve told you before, a lot of times we’ll go into it blind and say, well, you know, you’ve sinned and you need Jesus to save you, and that’s true, but that a lot of people in our world today don’t have enough background information, don’t have enough context to understand. What are you talking about with sin?

What is that? Why does that sin need to be forgiven? And so this is really an approach that I’ve heard of missionaries using in countries where they’re going to people that have never even heard of Jesus Christ, and they’re going in and they’re starting from creation and talking about how God created us, what He created us for, how we fell into sin, really explaining them the historical basis of the gospel, presenting it as God’s overall story through the Scriptures.

That’s what we’ve been studying on Wednesday nights. That’s what we’ve been studying on Sunday mornings. And we’ve seen how God created us and created us to love Him and to serve Him and to worship Him and to live in a perfect paradise in an intimate relationship with Him.

And that is the best existence we could possibly hope for. And yet, it’s out of our grasp today because sin entered into the world because of disobedient choices that Adam and Eve made and that we have followed in their footsteps. You know, they introduced sin into the world and it brought death, it brought suffering, it brought separation from God the Father.

And that sin still is a problem for us today because there’s still death in the world. There’s still suffering. We are still separated from the Father.

And yet God stepped in and rescued us. When we could do nothing to extract ourselves from the pit that we’ve dug for ourselves. When we could do nothing to save ourselves from our sins.

Jesus Christ stepped in and rescued us. He came in and took responsibility for our sins. He paid all of the sin debt that we owed.

He paid for that sin. He paid the penalty, and he took all the punishment that we earned or deserved. And now God offers that salvation to us as a free gift.

Salvation just means your sins are forgiven, that you can have a relationship with God the Father, and that you have eternal life with him in heaven. And God offers that as a free gift, not because we’ve earned it or deserved it, but because he’s kind enough and gracious enough to offer it out of his own goodness. And he paid for it so that he could offer it.

And so he rescued us. That’s what we talked about last week was the rescue. But now we turn to the restoration, the final part of this story.

No story is complete without the happily ever after part. You know, there’s the introduction, which is creation. There’s the complication, which is the fall.

There’s the, I just lost the word, starts with an R. Resolution, which is where Jesus stepped in and rescued us. And then there’s the happily ever after part.

If you don’t get that part, the story feels incomplete. a couple months ago we went to my family and I went to go see cinderella on stage at the civic center and it it was a good show it went on for a long time though and I kept thinking okay is this the end because not that I was ready for it to be over but I kept thinking okay the the stage went dark this feels like the end but something’s missing and then they came back and did the part where the glass slipper fits and then they all dance around and they’re happy and oh happily ever after, there’s that part. And in this particular arrangement of the Cinderella story, she reconciled with the wicked stepmother when I probably would have thrown her out of one of the castle towers.

They reconcile, they make peace with each other, and really, not just Cinderella, everybody lives happily ever after. It was a great happily ever after part of the story. The story would feel incomplete without it.

If you’ve been here on Wednesday nights, as discussed the story, the evangelism training program, you know that one of my favorite movies is The Patriot. Now if you’ve seen that in one of the final scenes, they win this last battle against the British, and it looks like they’re about to be defeated. The Americans, this rabble army, are retreating, and Mel Gibson’s character sees the flag being carried in retreat, And he grabs the flag and begins to wave it and he turns the other direction and he charges forward in the face of all this gunfire.

And the other men see it and they begin to follow him and they end up defeating the British. And it’s this wonderful moment in the story when they defeat the British and the revolution is over and America is born. But there are so many loose endings left.

So many things left hanging that it would feel incomplete if you didn’t go to the final scene and see the happily ever after moment. Where he gets remarried. His wife has passed away before the beginning of the movie.

I’m sorry. Am I spoiling the movie for you? It’s been out for about 20 years.

If you hadn’t seen it by now, you probably weren’t that big of a fan. He gets remarried. And they’re building a house.

And the house is a metaphor for the new country. And they’re building together. And you just see that everybody’s going to be okay.

Folks, God’s story has a happily ever after for us as well. I mean, the cross is a great resolution to the problem of sin. God’s story goes one step further and tells us what happens as a result of the cross.

That there is that happily ever after moment for us. That’s what takes us to Romans chapter 5 and Revelation 21. We’re going to talk about a couple of different parts of this story.

the theological aspect and then what that looks like for us later on. Romans chapter 5, starting in verse 1, and we’ve looked at this a little bit already. It says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We are justified by faith.

If you remember that from last week, I told you it’s very important that we understand what the Bible means when it says justification or being justified. It means that the slate has been wiped clean. It’s not that God is confused and thinks we didn’t sin.

but it means that he has chosen to forgive it, has chosen not to remember it, and that we are in a legal state as though it never happened. It’s sort of like Watergate. Now I wasn’t alive during Watergate but I’ve read all about it and I know there were strong feelings about it.

I know that most of the country didn’t feel like Nixon deserved to be pardoned for what he did at Watergate. But I also know that when Gerald Ford gave him that pardon they couldn’t do anything else about it. Now, was Nixon guilty of the things in all likelihood?

Yeah. But legally, it’s like it never happened. The courts couldn’t.

And that’s the same thing with God. Do we deserve pardon? No.

Do we deserve the forgiveness of our sin? No. Does God know it happened?

Yes, he does. But he’s chosen to decree that legally, as far as our judgment before his law, that it’s like it never happened. So he’s justified us.

He’s wiped our slate clean. He’s taken that big black mark off of our permanent record. We are justified by faith and that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And I’ve shared with you that our natural state is to be the enemies of God because we in our rebellion have decided that it should be that way.

Humanity, our natural inclination is to rebel against God. And yet, in spite of this, Jesus Christ made peace between man and God. And Jesus Christ made it possible for God’s promise to be fulfilled, that if we would simply come to Him in faith, that we would be justified.

Not because we deserved it, but because Jesus Christ paid for every bit of it. And so our slate can be wiped clean with. By whom we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

When it says by whom, that’s pointing out that it’s by Jesus that we have access into God’s grace in the first place. We don’t have access into God’s grace simply because we’re so wonderful, or we’re so lovely, or we’re so deserving. It’s because Jesus Christ died to pay for our sins.

And then when we come to Him by faith, we have access into this grace that God offers. And we stand in this grace. We are not insecure in the grace of God, folks.

If you’re coming to God thinking, well, I hope He still loves me after what I did yesterday. Well, you shouldn’t have done what you did yesterday, whatever it was. But we stand secure in this grace, not because we deserve it now, not because we’ll deserve it tomorrow, not because we deserved it when we first got it, but because Jesus Christ purchased that grace and offered it to those who would come to Him by faith.

And so we stand in His grace. We can be secure in His grace. Sometimes my parents and I don’t see eye to eye.

I mean, that’s just normal parent and child stuff. It’s not because I’m being rebellious. Usually I’m more conservative than my parents.

But we don’t always see eye to eye on things. But you know what? I never doubt that my parents love me.

I’m secure in that love. My kids will come to me after I spank them, after I’ve gotten on to them for the 15th time for doing the same thing in that day. They’ll come and say, Daddy, I love you.

After I just spanked them. My kids are secure in my love. They don’t question where they stand.

Folks, we know where we stand in the grace of God. And we don’t have to question or be insecure about it. And it’s all because Jesus paid for it.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. And God walks with us through tribulation, through trial. He strengthens us. He gives us, He grows us.

And you know what? He has given us His Holy Spirit to indwell us and walk with us. Sort of going back to what we talked about a couple weeks ago with Adam and Eve, how dumb it was that they thought they could hide anything from God.

Don’t ever convince yourself you can hide anything from God because if you’re a believer, if you’re a child of God, the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, dwells within you. And he knows what you think before you think it. And so we see this picture, the theological implications that God has forgiven us because of Jesus Christ. He’s wiped the slate clean.

Yes, all throughout this story, we’ve been in rebellion against God, and yet now there’s this happily ever after moment where the former rebels have been enabled to lay down their arms, and the King has forgiven them. And not only that, he said, I know what you’ve done. I know how awful you’ve been.

I know how rebellious you’ve been. And yet I choose not to remember it. You’re pardoned.

Legally, it’s like it never even happened. And he does that not because we deserve it, not because we’ve earned it, but because he’s good enough and he’s gracious enough to offer it. And Jesus Christ paid for it.

We’re going to turn to Revelation chapter 21. Revelation chapter 21, if you’ll turn there with me for just a moment. We’re going to look at a few verses here.

This is right after, this is toward the end of the book of Revelation, next to last chapter. We’ve gone through the seven seals and the seven vials and all of the tribulation, all of the judgment, really the wrath of God poured out on the sin of the earth as we all deserve. And there’s been judgment and those who have rejected God once and for all have been cast into the lake of fire at the end of chapter 20.

And then there’s a shift in chapter 21. If you read through it, you can see how the story changes from the chaos of war and the finality of judgment. And at the beginning of chapter 21, starting in verse 1, everything’s different.

The curtain has come down and the curtain has opened again and we’re in a new scene. It says, and I saw a new heaven and a new earth. John was given a vision of a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any pain for the former things are passed away and he that sat upon the throne said behold I make all things new and he said unto me write for these words are faithful and true and he said unto me it is done I am the Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end I will give unto him that is a thirst of the fountain of the water of life freely he that overcometh shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son now I am not absolutely certain on the timing of all these things I’ve told you before the timing of the end times and all that how it all works out is something that we can debate and disagree on and still walk out of the room brothers and sisters I have what I understand I have my opinion and I’ll put it that way, of what I understand the order of all these things to be, but I’m not so firm in that that I can’t be convinced otherwise from the Scriptures.

What I do know, what I do know and what I think every believer does know with certainty, is that at some point Jesus Christ will return. Now, is that before or after or during the. .

. Again, that’s what we can debate about. But He is coming back.

He will judge the world. He will set all things to right. He will right all wrongs.

And He will take those who believe in Him, those who trust in Him, those not who deserved it, but those who took advantage of God’s mercy because He paid for it. He’ll take those of us who trusted in Him and accepted God’s mercy. He’ll take us to be forever with God.

And we have this promise from God. The tabernacle of God is with men. I’ll dwell within them I’ll be their God and they’ll be my people which by the way is the same thing he said to Israel early on what God has desired has not changed throughout time God has always desired to have a people who would choose to love him and would choose to serve him that’s what his story has been all about and he’ll wipe away the tears from their eyes there won’t be any more sorrow no more death, no more crying, no more pain.

All the old things are passed away, he says. All things are new. All things will be new.

And he said, it’s done. It’s done. It’s a happily ever after.

Again, another one of those things that I don’t understand from the Bible and we can discuss, we can debate about, but we don’t really know for sure, is what exactly is heaven like? We know a few things that God has chosen to reveal to us. there’s a lot that he has not chosen to reveal to us because I submit to you the real reward for us is not actually heaven the real reward for us is getting to be for eternity in the presence of God that’s what makes it heaven now are there animals in heaven probably, maybe there are different verses that say things will we eat in heaven, I know there’s the marriage supper of the lamb and I really have to believe there’s at least one Chick-fil-A I mean I hope What are we going to do all day?

Will we fish? I don’t know. Sometimes my children ask me these questions.

I don’t know. I know that we will praise Him and we will worship Him and I know that we will enjoy His presence. Now what we do with Him as we’re enjoying His presence, I don’t know exactly what that looks like.

But folks, this is our happily ever after story. This is our happily ever after. When you look at the penalty that we deserved for our rebellion against God, when you realize that we deserved not only the first death, when our physical life comes to an end, but we deserve spiritual death after that.

We deserve to be eternally separated from God in darkness and fire when you realize what we deserved and realize that instead God, even though He didn’t have to, chose to love us, chose to make a way for us to be forgiven because we couldn’t do it on our own, chose to actually forgive us and follow through on His promises. When you consider what we deserve and you consider what God offers us instead, even if we don’t know all the details, we’ve got to realize what a great offer we’ve been given and that this is our happily ever after, that we get to spend eternity in His presence. There are three things that He offers us, maybe more, but three that I pick out of these two passages and see.

I’ve already talked about the first one a little bit, that through Jesus we can have peace with God. What is a happily ever after part of the story if there’s conflict, if there’s chaos? It’s just a continuation of the rest of the story.

For it to be the happily ever after part, there’s got to be peace. There’s peace throughout the land and everybody gets along. We go from being enemies of God to actually being on His side.

To being on God’s side. And make no mistake, we hear it all the time. I hope God’s on our side.

No, we hope we’re on God’s side. God’s side’s a lot bigger than mine. So we go from being His enemies to actually being on His side.

Our sins are no longer held against us. You know there are people who will hold against you every little thing you’ve ever done. Does that not drive you crazy?

I know nobody in here is like that. But we all know people like that. Drives you crazy.

Okay, that was 20 years ago. Let it go. 10 years ago I accidentally ran a stop sign because I didn’t see it.

Let it go. I know I’m not perfect. You don’t have to remind me.

But there are some people. I was talking to a pastor friend this week who’s been doing some counseling with a young couple and said the problem is she gets mad and she’ll remind him of every little thing he’s ever done. And some of it he’s done really wrong.

But once you’ve forgiven something, you don’t bring it up every time you need an emotional trump card. God doesn’t remind us any more of what we’ve done. He has chosen to remember our sins no more.

He doesn’t hold the sins against them because they’ve already been paid for. Jesus has already paid for them. And if God was still going to hold it against us, hear me on this, if God was still going to hold it against us, then Jesus wasn’t telling the truth when he said it is finished.

If you believe Jesus and take him at his word, you’ve got to believe that God has sinned against us anymore once we’ve asked for forgiveness. And there’s a longing in each of us for peace with God. Now some people dispute that because there are verses that say no one seeks after God and there are none righteous.

I believe that. But I believe that as human beings, we do have a longing for God. We do have a longing for spiritual things.

We do have a longing for peace with our Creator, but we are so messed up through our own sin, we don’t realize what it is we’re actually looking for. And so when people go out and try to find fulfillment in relationships, in stuff, in drugs, at the bottom of a bottle, whatever it is, when people go out and look in occult things, when people go out looking for fulfillment elsewhere, what they’re really searching for, what they’re really longing for, is peace with God, and they just don’t even realize that that’s what they need. And so we come to a point of peace with God, the deepest gnawing longing of our souls is fulfilled.

We finally, that missing piece of the puzzle, that we could find nowhere else, is back in place. Peace with God. Second of all, through Jesus, we can have an intimate fellowship with God.

It’s not just peace. Okay, we get along when we see each other. There are a lot of people that I can get along with just about everybody, especially if I take them in small doses.

That’s not the same. Having peace is not the same as having intimate fellowship. I’m at peace with just about everybody I know.

I have an intimate fellowship with my wife. We talk about just about everything, even on those days where it feels like we have not had a conversation today that didn’t involve the children’s disobedience or morning sickness. Okay, we have not.

Hey, that’s what’s going on in our lives that day, and so we talk about it. Sometimes I think we know each other better than we know ourselves. We have an intimate fellowship with God.

It’s not by accident that God uses marriage as a picture of the relationship between us and Him. It’s very interesting to me that in Revelation 21, it talks about the tabernacle of God being with men. The tabernacle before the temple was the dwelling place of God that they carried around with them.

And not just anybody could go in at just any time to fellowship with God. Certain people at certain times could go in and fellowship with God on behalf of the nation. But you know, whether it was the temple or whether it was the tabernacle, the veil between God and man was torn when Jesus Christ died on the cross.

And now it says the tabernacle of God is with men. And it says that He will give us His Holy Spirit. It says that His Holy Spirit indwells us in the book of Romans.

When it says the tabernacle of God is with men, it means we are no longer separated from God. He dwells in you and He dwells with you if you’re a believer. Now, do I know how all that works?

I don’t. I don’t know where your soul is physically located. Heard a conversation about that on the radio the other day.

I thought, I don’t know. where does he live? I don’t know how all that works.

But I do know the Bible says he and well. And I know it’s true because guys when I’m about to say something I shouldn’t I can be a little sharp-tongued and sarcastic at times. And the only reason you don’t see that is because there’s a voice in my head.

Please don’t send me to a doctor for telling you that. There’s a voice in my head that very often screams uh-uh as something’s about to come out. and it’s the Holy Spirit of God convicting me and nailing me right in the conscience and saying no, you’re not going to say that and hopefully I listen to him more often than not or when I’ve just when I’m on my way somewhere and God impresses on me that there’s something I need to do or there’s somebody I need to contact or something I need to go back and make right I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit is in here somewhere because I know me, flaws and all, selfishness and all, and it’s not me telling me, no, you’re not going to say that.

No, you’re not going to do that. This is what you need to do. It’s not me telling me right and wrong.

It’s the voice of the Spirit of God. The tabernacle of God is with me. If you’re a believer, you are not separated from God.

You actually have God, the Holy Spirit, living within you and guiding you every day. He’s no longer far from us. He’s as close to us as our own heartbeat.

And third of all, through Jesus Christ, we can experience unimaginable joy with God. He talks about this in verse 4 when he says that God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying.

Neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are all passed away. You know, I read this and I can’t even imagine what it would be like. I live a pretty peaceful life, a pretty good life.

And I don’t mean necessarily that I do good things. I try to. But I mean, my life is pretty good in contrast to some of what I see around me.

And even at that, there’s still something every day that troubles me. There are things that break my heart. There are things that stress me out.

Seven years ago, I had a lot less stomach and a lot more hair. And I’ll tell you, that’s what stress can do to you. There are still things that trouble me.

There’s still pain. There’s still suffering. There’s still separation when people die.

We finished going through some of my grandfather’s stuff yesterday. And he’s been gone a couple months now, and there are still times that I think, oh, I need to call Papa. Or a family event where I expect him to walk in the door.

And every time that happens, there’s a moment of sadness there still. There are days that come and go on the calendar where I think, okay, my son would have been this age this day. There’s sadness in this world.

I cannot imagine a world without sadness or without pain. It’s so foreign to everything we know and understand. And yet we have the promise of God that one day we are going to have such unimaginable joy in His presence that there won’t be any more crying.

There won’t be any more pain. Nobody else is going to die. Nobody’s going to hurt.

Nobody’s going to suffer. There’s going to be no more knee problems. there’s going to be no more morning sickness there’s going to be no more I am so tired if anybody else talks to me I’m going to smell not y’all none of that all the things that beat us down on a daily basis it’s all gone now again you may be sitting there thinking well that seems pretty far fetched it sounds far fetched because it’s so different from the world we live in and yet if you believe that God can do all things. Why couldn’t he?

And I used to sit in church as a younger man, as a teenager, and I’d hear older saints get up and give a testimony and talk about how they’re just ready to go on to heaven. They’re just ready to be with Jesus. And I think, well, yeah, I want to be with Jesus, but I’ve still got things to do.

And I’m still mostly in that boat. Benjamin was asking me yesterday when I’m going to heaven. Hopefully not on the drive home, baby.

You’re coming with me. But driving back from the city, that’s not a good time to ask me that. I told him, I said, well, I look forward to heaven, but I’m still not ready to go yet.

But you know what? As I get a little older every day and every year, I understand more and more about what people are talking about. As I lose more and more people who have been near and dear to me, as I move away from more and more people who are near and dear to me, as I see more and more the ugliness of this world, the longer I go through life, the better this looks.

and I have no doubt that in a few years I’m going to be right where they were saying I just want to go home, I’m tired Folks, this is our happily ever after Peace with God A clean slate An eternal joy And He offers it not because we’ve deserved it Not because we’ve earned it Not because we could be good enough But because we couldn’t earn it or deserve it And Jesus Christ was good enough He saw every sin you ever committed Or ever will commit And He took responsibility for it when He didn’t have it He died on the cross. He took my punishment and yours. And He offers us this.

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