Doug McMasters: On February 14, 1990, as Voyager 1 was making its way out of our solar system and continuing on into its interstellar journey, the mission managers gave one final command and told it to turn the cameras around and take some pictures of our solar system.
Doug McMasters: Amazing images, one of them in particular is astounding.
Doug McMasters: In the midst of all of this darkness and blackness and expanse of emptiness was one small blue dot, no larger than the head of a pen, essentially one pixel in the whole picture.
Doug McMasters: And what that was was planet Earth.
Doug McMasters: A fragile world floating in the middle of a massive expanse.
Doug McMasters: From that distance, all the noise of our earth was silent.
Doug McMasters: The rise and fall, falling of nations, the turmoil in this world, the triumphs and tragedies of humanity, all the things that seem momentous in our lives.
Doug McMasters: Silent.
Doug McMasters: Every bit of it.
Doug McMasters: And yet, from that far away, almost four billion miles away from the sun, was a picture of an earth in which we are all on, in which all of our lives are connected in some way, telling us a story that this world is part of a universe immensely larger than we can imagine.
Doug McMasters: And that our lives are a part of a story that's far larger than our moments, that started long before we came and will extend long after we end our lives.
Doug McMasters: It's a story that began a long time ago when God spoke the world into existence.
Doug McMasters: The songs that we've sung so far, and the songs that we're going to sing in a few moments, belong to this story.
Doug McMasters: It belongs to a story in which the songs we sing are not isolated statements of, but part of the ark, going from creation to new creation in Christ, and then into a new heavens and a new earth.
Doug McMasters: They trace a scripture message in three movements that we've been looking at and singing about this evening.
Doug McMasters: The wonder of creation in the beginning, the miracle of new creation in Christ, and the promise of a world made new.
Doug McMasters: I'd like for us to follow that arc a little bit before we move into the next section of our songs.
Doug McMasters: And if you have a Bible, let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 4.
Doug McMasters: If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the pew in front of you, and you can turn to page 1024.
Doug McMasters: In just a few verses in this chapter, Paul reaches back to the first moments of creation, looks at the miracle of the new birth, and lifts our eyes to the day when God will make all things new.
Doug McMasters: And like I said, he's not giving us three separate ideas, but showing us one story, God's story.
Doug McMasters: It moves from the first light of Genesis to the wonder of renewal at the end of Revelation.
Doug McMasters: It's a story that we're in right at this moment tonight.
Doug McMasters: It's a story that I pray steadies our hearts, fills us with hope, and strengthens our praise.
Doug McMasters: So we're going to look at these three movements.
Doug McMasters: We're going to look at God who created light out of darkness, God who made all things new in Christ, and the God who will bring a new heavens and a new earth in the coming day.
Doug McMasters: In verse 6, we see the first movement.
Doug McMasters: There it is in verse 6 it says, For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness.
Doug McMasters: Paul reaches back to the very first moments of Scripture, inviting us to remember, to remember a universe that hasn't yet taken shape, to remember that it was only marked by darkness and the deep.
Doug McMasters: It was without form, without sound, without life.
Doug McMasters: And if we were to look at it, nothing in it would suggest any possibility whatsoever.
Doug McMasters: Nothing in it would talk of beauty or order.
Doug McMasters: It was only darkness.
Doug McMasters: And yet, into that silence and into that God spoke.
Doug McMasters: And it was there because God willed it to be.
Doug McMasters: Creation came into being because God commanded it.
Doug McMasters: The world we know it as we know it now is not here because there was raw material for God to shape, but because God called something into existence when there was nothing at all.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is not simply drawing us back to Genesis to give us a theological reminder, but he's using it to ground our confidence in the character of God and his power.
Doug McMasters: Because the God we've worshipped and the God we will continue to worship, not only tonight, but all of our days as believers, is a God who's not limited by the things that he finds.
Doug McMasters: He's a God who's not constrained by the things that are there in front of him.
Doug McMasters: He's a God who is not limited, not hesitant, not reactive, a God who can speak nothing into reality out of nothing.
Doug McMasters: He brought order out of chaos and he brought beauty out of emptiness.
Doug McMasters: And creation here is not just the opening of the chapters of the Bible, it's the foundation of who we are as believers.
Doug McMasters: Because if he can call the galaxies into existence, he can certainly put hope in places where there is no hope.
Doug McMasters: If he's a God who can bring light into a world without form, he can bring clarity into a life that's full of confusion.
Doug McMasters: If he can speak order out of chaos, he can speak peace into the places where we feel completely undone.
Doug McMasters: And so we come to a God not who simply takes what's there and reacts to our circumstances, but a God who can do exceedingly above and beyond anything that we might ask or think.
Doug McMasters: The God who began creation is a God who's at work today.
Doug McMasters: And Paul moves in that same verse to give us the second movement of these three great movements, from creation at the beginning to new creation in Christ.
Doug McMasters: In verse 6, again, for the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light to the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: The same God who spoke light out of the darkness is the same God who speaks light in a different darkness.
Doug McMasters: But it's not the darkness hovering over all of the waters, but rather the darkness that lies in the human heart.
Doug McMasters: And the light that he brings is not the light of the sun or the light of the stars or even the reflective light of the moon.
Doug McMasters: It's the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And here we see the wonder of salvation.
Doug McMasters: That God is not simply trying to improve our lives or to polish what we can give him.
Doug McMasters: He is actually creating new life in us through Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: He's bringing life where there was none.
Doug McMasters: And he's doing something that only God can do.
Doug McMasters: Paul in the next chapter makes that even clearer.
Doug McMasters: He said, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
Doug McMasters: The old is passed away, and see the new has come.
Doug McMasters: Being a believer is not about self-improvement or moral polishing or offering God a new leaf or new promises to do better tomorrow.
Doug McMasters: The Christian life is about a resurrection into new life itself.
Doug McMasters: This God who created light out of darkness creates light in dark hearts and allows us to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: He's describing a miracle that takes place inside of people.
Doug McMasters: Paul is not simply talking about salvation here.
Doug McMasters: He's also talking about his ministry.
Doug McMasters: And he's also speaking about his ministry with a church that needs to learn something about this wonderful new creative power that's present in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: He's speaking to men and women who are feeling the strain of carrying their lives along in the midst of a competitive world, whose hearts have grown tired, and whose bodies and minds sometimes feel stretched thin.
Doug McMasters: And he's speaking to them just as he spoke about himself being pressed on every side, perplexed by the circumstances that he didn't choose to be a part of, and feeling the weight of burdens that were beyond his strength to carry.
Doug McMasters: And he's saying to them, the same God who spoke life into your heart through Jesus Christ is the same God who can speak life and strength and help in the midst of your lowest, weakest moments.
Doug McMasters: Some of us are going through those kind of moments.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with medical issues that leave you with a lot of uncertainty about what tomorrow brings, what next week or next year might have for you.
Doug McMasters: Or those of you that are dealing with relationships that are strained, some that are already broken, and you feel a pain that you can't even articulate.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with a child whose choices have brought such heaviness to your heart that you actually groan out loud.
Doug McMasters: Some of you are dealing with jobs that are asking more of you than you have to give.
Doug McMasters: And some of you are dealing with private sorrows that you're not even sure you can talk about, even with your closest friends.
Doug McMasters: These are the places where we feel our limits.
Doug McMasters: Paul felt them as he ministered the gospel among all the churches and in the Roman world.
Doug McMasters: But these are the places where many of us feel like jars of clay, just like Paul said about himself.
Doug McMasters: And this is where the passage speaks to us.
Doug McMasters: It tells us that our fragility and our weakness, they're not threats to God.
Doug McMasters: These are the very places where he is going to work what is unmistakably clear that only God can do.
Doug McMasters: You see, the treasure is Christ and the jar is ours.
Doug McMasters: And the contrast is meant to be intentional for us.
Doug McMasters: That God is not waiting for us to be stronger vessels.
Doug McMasters: God is revealing his strength through our weaknesses.
Doug McMasters: He's not asking us to hold ourselves together.
Doug McMasters: He's showing us what his power is like when we don't have anything held together.
Doug McMasters: And he's not measuring our steadiness or measuring our progress.
Doug McMasters: He's shining the light of Christ in places where we're worn and where we're weary.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Paul anchors our confidence and our hope in the new creation that comes in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: Because the power that's available to God's people is the exact same power that God exerted when he spoke over nothing and said, Let there be light.
Doug McMasters: And it's the same power that God spoke when he said to our dark, sinful, disobedient souls, let the light of Christ shine in you.
Doug McMasters: That power, that ability, that desire of God's part has not gone away.
Doug McMasters: Even if you're in the middle of times when you're pressed and confused and stretched thin.
Doug McMasters: Paul is reminding us that his renewing work is based upon his character, not ours.
Doug McMasters: It's based on his faithfulness.
Doug McMasters: And so when he said, Let there be light, he wants to continue to say, Let there be light in you.
Doug McMasters: And that brings us to the third section.
Doug McMasters: And peppered throughout the rest of this chapter and on into the next are statements that lift us from the beginning to the present day of new creation in Christ, on to the wonderful end of the new heavens and the new earth.
Doug McMasters: Take a look at verse 14 for a second.
Doug McMasters: He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Verse 17.
Doug McMasters: This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.
Doug McMasters: In verse 18, the things that are unseen are eternal.
Doug McMasters: Paul began earlier in this chapter with creation, with God speaking light out of darkness.
Doug McMasters: He moved into new creation, of Christ being the light that shines within our hearts.
Doug McMasters: And now he talks about that final new heaven and new earth of eternity, which will again be God raising light.
Doug McMasters: And he reminds us that this is the same God who was at work and is at work and will be at work.
Doug McMasters: And he's telling us that our future is not vague, our future is not uncertain.
Doug McMasters: It is resurrection, it is restoration, it is renewal, and it includes all things.
Doug McMasters: And it's guaranteed by the same power when God spoke creation into being and when he spoke the life of Christ into your heart.
Doug McMasters: Notice what he says about our present day.
Doug McMasters: That our present troubles are light and momentary.
Doug McMasters: Now, when Paul says those things, he's not minimizing the weight of our present difficulties.
Doug McMasters: He's not telling us to sort of look at them and simply say to them, yes, this is excruciatingly painful, but I have to call you light.
Doug McMasters: And I have to call you momentary.
Doug McMasters: He's not saying that we simply have to speak down against the realities that we're facing.
Doug McMasters: What he is asking us to do is not to pretend that they're small, but rather compare them to something far greater.
Doug McMasters: The eternal weight of glory.
Doug McMasters: Something far heavier, more lasting, and more glorious than we've ever experienced, and far beyond what we can even imagine.
Doug McMasters: As he said in 1 Corinthians, eye is not seen, nor ear heard, nor is it even entered into the hearts of men the things God has prepared for those who love him.
Doug McMasters: He's inviting us to measure our lives against that, not against what we see in others, or what we would see in our expectations, or what we might even see in our hopes, but to measure them up against what we cannot see.
Doug McMasters: So Paul here is drawing a straight line from the God who began creation with the word, who brings new life into dead hearts by speaking a word of life, and who will look upon all of us as his children and usher us immediately into the wonder of a new heaven and a new earth by simply saying, It is finished.
Doug McMasters: And on that day, every sorrow we face will be answered, every wound that we've ever had will be healed, every longing that's ever ached within our soul will be met.
Doug McMasters: Every tear that is dripped off of our eyes and down our cheeks will be wiped away.
Doug McMasters: Today we live in a world that groans, and we groan, but that groaning is not the end of our story.
Doug McMasters: The God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the God who will also raise us up with him and also will bring the creation into the new heavens and the new earth.
Doug McMasters: The glory that awaits us outweighs every burden, it outweighs every care, it outweighs every trouble, it outweigh every moment of darkness.
Doug McMasters: And so here we are tonight, sort of at the end of movement two, where we've sung about the new creation in Christ, having already sung about the creation that God has brought everything into being.
Doug McMasters: And we're about to enter into that section of songs that will lead us to the hope in front of us.
Doug McMasters: And Paul is inviting us in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 to put a stamp of our understanding into the songs that we're about to sing.
Doug McMasters: The God that we sang about, who brought life out of darkness, shines the light of Christ in our hearts, is the same God who's going to make all things new.
Doug McMasters: And there he will finish his work.
Doug McMasters: But he has never exhausted his power.
Doug McMasters: And so this evening, when we sing, we're not simply singing with wonder of a God who created and gratitude for a God who saves, but we're singing with anticipation of a God who is about to act.
Doug McMasters: And so this God calls us to sing with joy and sing with hope and sing with expectancy and to sing with celebration.
Doug McMasters: Because the God who brought you life is the God who will bring you into that future glory.
Doug McMasters: Amen.