New Creation – June 11, 2017

Old Testament Lesson: Genesis 1:2:4a

Responsive Reading: Psalm 8

New Testament Lesson: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

In the very beginning God created and his creation was perfect. He had a perfect order for how to have things done. And that was perfect. Everything he created was so good.

The creation story. How many of us have heard of the debate about whether God created the world in six days? Whether he was able to use a day like our days for such enormous jobs, like separating light from darkness or creating animals and most importantly humans?

When I studied theology in Hungary, one of my professors taught us that the creation story was written when the Israelites were in exile in Babylon . The Babylonians had many gods and they feared the stars, the Sun and Moon. The Israelites had only one God, but they were not sure whether their only God was with them or if He stayed in Jerusalem, where the temple was. And during their time in exile the creation story was formed by the prophet of God: they didn’t have to fear the stars, Moon or Sun because those were created by God. God is the creator and he is the only living God. The stars, Moon and Sun are all creations of our creator God.

And this is the beauty of the creation story, that our God created everything and so we don’t have to fear.

Years and years later, when science became more important than faith there was a big debate about whether the creation story of the Bible was a real story or only a nice tale. We know about the theories which tried to show the world how irrelevant the Bible was.

What is sad about this whole story is that we have God who is our creator but instead of celebrating our lives people questioned whether he could create the world in six days or whether those days were like our days with 24 hours, and somehow people forgot to think about how God is able to do everything, there is no impossible for Him.

What do you think the most important question is:

• whether God created the world in six days
• Which is the true version: the creation story of the Bible or the Big Bang theory
• Is it God who has created the world?
• Is there anybody behind creation? Does God really exist?
• Does God have limitations? Is He able to create?

What is your answer? I don’t want to tell you what is good and what is wrong, the answer is in the Bible:

In the beginning God created…

You know, that is enough for me. I know God and I want to believe in Him, I don’t want to worship stars, although I know what a big temptation it is to read Horoscope., I also don’t want to fear natural disasters, I want to fear God, who created them, and who is able to stop them. How many times do we worry about natural disasters because we know about what is happening in our world and it is a real fear. We don’t want to lose our lives, our loved ones, our possessions. But how many of us are worrying about losing our souls?

That is why we have to see the next chapter of the creation story.

Whether you can believe or not that God created the universe, it is obvious that something happened to the good order. And I don’t think that day, night or animals changed, but human beings did change. Sin started to appear in every part of our lives: anger, madness, sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred, jealousy, drunkenness, etc.

The creation which was so beautiful in the beginning needed to be recreated and that was why God send Jesus Christ, in Him our lives can be renewed. In Him it is possible what Paul asks:

"Finally, brothers and sisters,　rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace." 2Cor 13:11

What is the reason for our joy? Because in Jesus Christ our God was reconciling the whole world to himself. In Christ it’s possible to strive for full restoration.

How many of you want full restoration? Think for a minute about your life and ask the question in which part of your life do you need restoration from God the most? Think of your life and see where your weak point is, where you need strength to be whole.

Then we should encourage others to see that it’s possible, our lives can renewed and we can live in unity and in peace.

When you accept Jesus as your Saviour, you will experience special peace from God. And we need this.

We all fall away and worship the gods of success and of wealth and of power

and we do seek divine protection and divine comfort from things that

are mortal and perishable rather than seeking them from the one who

makes all things. Like when the Babylonians worshiped the stars. And when we all made bad decisions in our lives and we expected God to be angry He chose not to be angry forever but love us more.

God has chosen to bless us even though we have not sought his Blessing. He has chosen to forgive us even though we have blamed him for all our faults. He has chosen to love us with a love that will change us and save us from ourselves even though we have not loved him and even though we need a lot of saving.

God decided he would rescue us from ourselves by becoming one of us. That is why He came close to us in Jesus Christ.

What a beautiful story about our salvation, about our creation. This world is so beautiful. Sisters and brothers, rejoice and be glad!