Creation's Cry

INTRO

Good morning, everyone!

prayer cards

kristy, Kara, ade from care team

very honored to be here, didn’t know if I would be able to. john wrote a sermon on the fly to cover… Just healed enough to….

sorry if I cough, need to drink water

This morning we’ll be diving into the Beauty of God’s Creation and seeing how God’s creation can actually bring us back to the truth of the Gospel.

A few days ago, I celebrated the 13th anniversary of the day I became a Christian.

These past 13 years have been the best in my life. I am so grateful that the Lord called me to Himself.

13 years is a long time. Many of you are what, between 20 and 25-years-old? Meaning, 13 years ago, you were somewhere between 7 and 12-years-old.

Thought exercise:

Imagine the version of yourself from 13 years ago.

Now imagine that version of yourself, teleported through time to today, working at the job that you currently have, dating in the relationship you’re in, or doing whatever you do in this season of life.

When you think about this situation (version of yourself from 13 years ago, teleported to now, taking over all the things you’re responsible for today) it should be comically apparent how unprepared that version of yourself from 13 years ago would be to handle those situations.

That version of you has 13 fewer years of:

growth, development. knowledge, and experience

And there are some aspects of our youth that we are either glad we’ve outgrown them, or we’re still doing our best to outgrow them (impulsivity - shortsightedness, emotional volatility, lack of self-control, and a general ignorance of the world and how it operates) And I would guess that you, today - as an adult, if you were exhibiting some of the same characteristics you had 13 years ago, things you ought to have grown out of by now, you’d probably feel disappointed or dissatisfied with how far you’ve come in your development.

In the same way, many of us Christians can’t really see much of a difference between who we were before we became Christian and who we are afterwards.

Or if you can see the differences, you might still be disappointed or dissatisfied with where you are in your Christian faith today because you’re still struggling with some of the same things you struggled with 13 years ago, or whenever it was you became a Christian.

And we become fixated on the ways we still fall short, on the brokenness.

You’ve been working for months or years to develop a prayer life, but you still struggle to sit down and pray for longer than 5 minutes straight without falling asleep or completely losing your train of thought and going off on some tangent in your brain.

You’ve been working for months or years to tackle your pride, your lust, your greed, *insert your sin here* … you’ve been working for months or years to tackle these things, yet you still struggle.

You constantly compare yourself to others, you’re addicted to pornography, you’re chasing the next promotion so you can get more power or more money thinking that any of these things are going to bring you true satisfaction in life.

We see how we fall short, we see how much further we have to go to be without sin, and we’re dissatisfied.

And when you look at these things that you still struggle with, it’s easy to cry out to God saying, “God, what the heck is wrong with me? Why am I still so broken? After all of these years, I’m still trapped in this muck. Am I going to be like this forever?”

And we begin to lose hope.

Sometimes, this leads us to begin doubting God’s power.

“Does God actually have the power to transform me? To rip this sin out of my life? To fix this broken and sinful world?” “God, if you have this power, why won’t you do it already?”

We live in a broken world, we live in broken bodies, we live lives that are broken by sin, we are so completely surrounded by brokenness, it’s hard for us not to focus on it.

over exposure to little g gods, destruction, and hurtful people

We’re inundated by it, so these thoughts often seem unavoidable.

But we must turn our eyes from the brokenness that we see and place them on the beauty that God has surrounded us with.

When we focus on the ways we still fall short, we default into thinking that our brokenness is evidence that Satan is winning in certain areas of our lives.

But the truth that I want you to walk away understanding this morning is that your brokenness is actually evidence that God is victorious.

And we can see that as we consider the beauty of His creation.

So open your Bibles to Psalm 8.

*LET’S GO!*

Let’s learn some cool things about God.

Scripture Reading

Psalm 8 (ESV)

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

1 O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength because of your foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,

7 all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

David Considers Creation

This whole message today will be based upon the idea that David Considered Creation.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place...”

David is saying, “I look at your creation:

the heavens that you’ve created.

the moon and the stars.

I look to the angels.

I look to the humans that you’ve created.

I look to the animals that you’ve created.

The sheep, oxen, field animals, fish, birds, everything.

David Considers God’s Creation, and it puts him in a place of Admiration for God.

Considering Creation Leads to Admiration

The title of this morning’s message is “Creation’s Cry”

That’s Creation’s Cry: To Admire the Creator.

It’s not to admire the creation, it’s to admire the one who created it.

All of creation points to something, it cries out to something, more importantly, to someone.

There are three distinct facets of Creation’s Cry that we’ll talk about today.

Creation:

Preaches Principles: David’s admiration for God comes from His understanding of theological principles based on his consideration of creation.

Gives Glory: David’s admiration for God comes from his giving glory to God based on his consideration of creation.

Reveals Redemption: David’s admiration for God comes from his recognition of the hope for redemption based on his consideration of creation.

David’s Consideration of Creation leads to Admiration.

Preaches Principles

Psalm 8:3–8 ESV

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

David asks the question of God, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

His observation of God’s magnificence through God’s creation gives David a sense of humility.

Psalm 8 reminds me a lot of a quote from Neil Degrasse Tyson (astrophysicist), which is ironic, because he’s not usually someone who comes to mind when you think about the Bible.

Somebody asked him what the most astounding fact he can think of about the Universe is… to paraphrase what he says, “The most astounding fact is that the atoms in our bodies originated in ancient stars that exploded, spreading the ingredients for life across the galaxy. To him, this means that, far from being separate from the vast universe, we actually carry a piece of it within us. For him, this cosmic connection makes him feel vast and significant, as if he’s actively participating in the grandness of this galactic orchestra.”

I think King David is getting a similar feeling as what Neil Degrasse Tyson is describing.

At first, he feels small.

“I’m just this tiny little dude, looking at all this crazy stuff out there that you created. How in the world are you mindful of me??? How in the world do you care for me? Out of all the other magnificent things you’ve created, why ME?!”

He sees the vastness of everything God has ever created, and he rightfully recognizes how small and physically insignificant humanity is in comparison to the other works of God’s hands.

Yet in the very next few verses (5-8), we see that David begins to extract a theological principle through his observation of creation.

- Mankind is temporarily made lower than the angels, and they’re given dominion over God’s creation And crowned with honor and glory.

V.5 “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings (the angels), and crowned him with glory and honor.”

“A little” in “a little lower” likely means temporarily, and that is consistent with what we see elsewhere in Scripture

Hebrews 1:14 ESV

14 Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

Although humanity is set lower than the angels in power and glory for the time being, there will be a time where those redeemed by God will be crowned in honor and glory.

We will be set above the angels, as 1 Cor. 6:3 says, we will even judge the angels.

And on top of that they have dominion, which is a role reserved for us, his human creation.

Through his consideration of creation, David recognizes that God has a special, a unique, call for humanity despite all of humanity’s shortcomings.

FLAWS AND ALL, THAT’S GOD’S CALL. (x2)

God is mindful of us. God cares for us.

That’s the principle that Creation is preaching to David. That you, a human being, despite all of your flaws, are far more valuable than any of this stuff around you.

Far more valuable than the Jordans on your feet, the diamonds in the mines, all the riches of the world, (OLD BAY), far more valuable than any resource in all the universe!

When David considers creation, he recognizes this fact.

You are valuable, because God has made you valuable.

And not by accident either, it is all orchestrated by the maker. By God.

It’s not an accident that you were made — that God knitted you together in your mother’s womb with the very elements that found in those distant stars, the same stars that David was looking at.

God spoke the universe into existence, intentionally, and He spoke you into existence and intentionally made you in His very image.

Which means you carry a divine responsibility and you have a tremendous mission and purpose during your time here on this planet.

And that purpose is for each of us to bring glory to God. —> which is our next point

I bet none of you had me quoting an astrophysicist on your Young Adult Retreat BINGO card, did you?

I love Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I studied astrophysics for a while in college, and that guy was a hero to me.

Pray for that man. He’s not an atheist, he considers himself agnostic (which is where I found myself in college as I was studying this same stuff). Pray that the beauty of creation, which he studies every day, will lead him to knowing God.

That’s the hope for all of us today too, that as we consider God’s creation, we might come to learn more about our creator and fall more deeply in love with Him.

As our consideration of creation leads us to admiration.

So, that’s the first point: Creation Preaches Principles

Gives Glory

Have you ever read the Bible and wondered, “Why did they word it that sentence that way?” or “I wonder why they used that word.”

If not, I highly encourage you to start asking those kinds of questions as your read the Bible, it will lead you to some great learning opportunities.

In verse 2, we see one of these opportunities to ask this question.

Psalm 8:2 ESV

2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

Why did he use those words?

My wife, Gwen, and I had a baby in April.

Gwen had a baby, I just cheered her on and cried a little bit.

Roman’s here at the retreat, come say hello if you see him and Gwen. If you’re having a bad day, he’ll smile at you and you’ll completely forget about what was causing your frustration.

Babies are awesome. They’re fun. They’re cute (most of them).

You know what they’re not? Powerful.

So why does David say that through the mouth of babies and infants that God has established strength?

It makes no sense, until it clicks.

It clicked for David, we can see that here. That’s why he used these words.

It clicked for the Apostle Paul. That’s why he used his particular words in 2 Corinthians 12.

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 ESV

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

God establishes his power through weakness.

So David is recognizing the weakness of humanity, yet he also recognizes that there’s this odd juxtaposition of...

Humanity being weak.

Humanity having dominion over all of God’s creation.

What we see in this Psalm is a marriage of these two realities.

These two things that we, as weak-minded human beings, consider two mutually exclusive things.

God is saying, “No, these two things are inseparable. The one is because of the other, and the other is because of the one.”

God giving humanity dominion over all of His creation is precisely because God’s power is made perfect in humanity’s weakness! Humanity’s place in the order of creation speaks not to the glory of man, but it speaks directly about the glory of God!

Creation Shouts God’s Glory, Not Our Own Story. (x2)

So, when we, as humans—in our weakness, do things through the power of God.

Who gets the glory?

GOD DOES!

Not YOU. Not me. Not King David.

GOD!

By considering creation, David recognizes humanity’s place in the order of creation — a place humanity does not deserve because of our weakness — and God gets the glory.

Again, his consideration of creations leads to admiration — and in this case glorification. (It’s so easy to rhyme words that end in A-T-I-O-N)

So when you’re going about your day and you’re trampled by the reality that you are a broken human being, that you still struggle with sin.

Paralyzed by the thought that you’ve been a Christian for x-amount of years, and you’re still struggling with the same stuff.

That’s evidence of God’s power.

God didn’t call you for YOU to be perfect.

God called you so that HE could MAKE you perfect, so that He would be glorified through His perfecting OF you, in His timing.

And it is your precise weakness that allows God to demonstrate His immense power.

As Christians, we believe that God is making each and every one of us more like Jesus every day.

But as human beings, we think God’s moving way too slowly, am I right?

And we begin to lose hope.

And in some ways, we should lose hope.

But as we lose one hope, we must replace it with a greater one.

This is what David is hinting at.

We ought not to hope in our own strength.

It is through the mouths of babies and infants, who have no strength of their own, that God’s strength is established.

For goodness sake, Roman is 6 months old now, and he just barely got to a point where he’s not a bobble head anymore.

That’s all the power that Roman has… that he can keep his head from going like *this* any time any part of his body moved.

Let me ask you: When you think about your strength, not just physical strengths, but maybe emotional, spiritual, skills at work, whatever… Do you consider yourself like a baby, with no strength at all?

Or do you take pride in the little strength you do have, even though in the grand scheme of things it’s nothing?

For us to move from brokenness to beauty and experience healing, we must embrace our weaknesses,

We must lose all hope in our own strength, so that God’s strength may be established through us.

This reality is seen most clearly in Christ, which leads us to our last point.

So Creation’s Cry: Preaches Principles, Gives Glory, and lastly, it Reveals Redemption.

Reveals Redemption

Hebrews 2:5–10 (ESV)

5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere,

“What is man, that you are mindful of him,

or the son of man, that you care for him?

7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels;

you have crowned him with glory and honor,

8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.”

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Jesus is the fulfillment of Psalm 8.

As we look through Psalm 8, if you’re paying attention, you are actually reminded of all the ways that humanity falls short.

We’re weak…

We have dominion, but we really don’t control anything.

I have a well trained dog, but she only listens to like 50% of her commands.

Although we were given dominion by God in the Garden of Eden, our ability to exercise dominion over creation was affected by the Fall And creation’s ability to submit to our dominion is affected also!

When Adam and Eve sinned, not only did brokenness enter into the world, but the things we were designed to do, we now do incompletely and often times incorrectly.

That includes both exercising dominion over creation and being a proper reflection of God as His ambassadors made in His very image.

We do both those things poorly because of sin and brokenness.

Yet it was through this sin and brokenness that God’s power was demonstrated to its fullest degree.

Because Jesus, the Son of God, came down from Heaven, was born of the Virgin Mary — the creator of the universe, the very thing David was considering and meditating on...

The creator of all that, came to this Earth as a baby. A vulnerable little baby, with no strength to keep his head from wobbling back and forth. With no strength to crawl. With no knowledge to speak his mother’s language.

The God of all creation lowered Himself below the angels, as a human being, so that He could do everything that we were designed to do — except He would do them perfectly.

And despite His perfection, His innocence, His righteousness, He suffered, died, and was buried.

And it was because of this suffering of death that Jesus was crowned with honor and glory.

So that BY THE GRACE OF GOD He might taste death for all of us.

“For it was fitting that he, FOR whom and BY whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their [OUR] salvation perfect through [HIS] suffering.”

David didn’t know about Jesus when He prayed this prayer to God.

Yet He understood that God was doing something that he never could have imagined.

My friends, God is in the business of redemption.

Those without flaws need no redemption.

So if God is in the business of redemption, then those without flaws don’t need God.

But those with flaws (and I hate to break it to you, but we all have flaws!), need God!

Our flaws help to reveal a God who will heal. (x2)

The brokenness of your heart and your mind, the brokenness of your relationships, the brokenness of this world that we live in...

All of that is redeemed in Jesus.

All of that… restored in Jesus.

You see, God doesn’t just want to restore your relationship with Himself, He wants to restore your relationship with the rest of His creation also.

so that when you look to his creation, rather than seeing the brokenness and all of the bad, you might see it as God did moments after he created it, when he saw that it was good.

He saw it how He designed it, as beautiful.

You can see brokenness in the world only because the beauty in God’s creation makes it stand out.

Brokenness contrasts so starkly against the beauty of creation, that you can’t help but to see it.

But the idea here is that you wouldn’t focus on the brokenness, but that you’d shift your focus to the beauty that the brokenness contrasts with.

Because beauty brings hope, and its healing.

- John Eldredge (Christian author)

"Beauty heals, partly because it proclaims that there is goodness in the world and that goodness prevails, or is preserved, or will somehow outlast all harm and darkness."

This is what we see in Christ. We see that goodness wins!

So our brokenness is not evidence that Satan has even an ounce of victory.

SATAN HAS BEEN DEFEATED.

SIN HAS BEEN DEFEATED.

DEATH HAS BEEN DEFEATED.

CLOSING:

You will see your brokenness, the brokenness of others, the brokenness of the world, the brokenness of our political system, you will see brokenness for however long you’re here on this earth. We are over exposed to destruction, whether it’s the destruction of our righteousness, or the destruction of order in the world.

but by considering creation, you can catch a glimpse of the beauty that God has surrounded you with.

And when you look to that beauty, we’re reminded that brokenness is only temporary, and that the God who created all of this is faithful and loving and kind and restorative, and He WILL heal you.

Beauty feeds the soul, and beauty heals the soul.

You have to understand is that the brokenness that you see in this world isn’t evidence of Satan’s victory, it’s evidence of God’s immense power to redeem what is broken and make it beautiful.

I think that’s what David was able to understand, and he wrote this Psalm a result of that.

David can see the beauty, the power, and the redemptive mission of God just by starting with the consideration of God creation.

And you can, too. You just have to look.

2 Practical Ways to Help You Consider Creation:

As you do these things, the goal is never to give glory to the creation but to give glory to the Creator.

1. GO OUTSIDE!

The US Environment Protection Agency estimates that the average American spends 90% of their time indoors.

Inside of a house, work office, car, store, whatever.

That’s nearly 22 hours each day inside. 328 days out of the year.

For an American who lives to be 90 years old, they will have spent 81 years of their lives indoors.

That’s the society that we live in:

And as a result, we spend so little time actually observing the beauty of God’s creation.

We spend so much more time observing that thing from your favorite content creator that you neglect to observe the work of your own Creator.

Go OUTSIDE.

Go hike somewhere if you’re able.

Go outside and observe God’s creation.

We often choose very picturesque places for these retreat venues. That’s intentional, I hope you know.

There is something deeply spiritual about connecting to God through the consideration of His creation.

My hope is that you don’t squander the time that you have here. Use this time as an opportunity to go experience the beauty of God’s creation, and allow that to draw you into a place of admiration for the God who created you and saved you!

2. Look for the beauty in what God’s creation creates.

A spider’s web.

Something so intricately woven is nowhere near the detail and intentionality that God had as He wove each and every one of us together in our mothers’ wombs.

Phone in your pocket; Excel; the building you’re in won’t fall.

God created people with brains who could work together...

If they’re able to do that, what is God able to do?

A city’s skyline.

So much knowledge needed.

Yet God does immeasurably more.

Artwork. Music.

How much more beautiful are we, flaws and all, by the grace of God, as His very own masterpieces.

If you want to admire your creator more, go consider the things He created.

Let’s pray.

In what ways do you feel like you’re clinging on, hanging by a thread by your own power and strength? What could it look like for you to lose hope in your strength to gain hope in God’s?

Did any of you attempt to consider creation today? How did it go? Was it easy/hard? What did it lead you to meditate on about God?

How does understanding that God’s call is for us, flaws and all, change the way you approach your brokenness or how you view God?