How should Christians view the environment – Romans Ch8v18to30

Sermons Archive - Greenview Church

Thanks Colin, good evening everybody, good to be here. We’re looking at Christians in the Environment. As Colin has said, we’re going to take a little bit of a deeper dive into that subject.

It’s going to be a bit like a Bible study in that there’s going to be various verses that are going to appear on the screen to stop you having to hunt about too much. So we’re going to go on that kind of basis, but it’s always good just to start with some scripture. Paul instructs Timothy in Ephesus to devote himself to teaching and preaching and to the public reading of scripture.

So it’s just good to take time to hear God’s words before we do anything else. I’m going to read Psalm 8, which we’re not going to particularly expound tonight, although you’ll see as we go on a lot of the kind of overlap with some of the other things we are going to say. But let’s hear God’s words as God’s word speaks in to this subject.

Psalm 8. For the director of music, according to Gitteth, a Psalm of David. Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory in the heavens through the praise of children and infants.

You have established a stronghold against your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them? Human beings that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.

You have made them rulers over the works of your hands. You put everything under their feet, all flocks and herds and all the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, all that swim in the paths of the seas. Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

This is the word of God. I’m sure many of you will have seen, watched or at least heard about The Crown. It’s that series on Netflix, the drama that is based on the life of Queen Elizabeth II and goes all the way through her reign.

I haven’t watched it all. I wasn’t sure whether it’d be my cup of tea, but Jessica said some of the early episodes had Winston Churchill in them. So I went and I watched those particular episodes.

I know it’s an illness, but one of those episodes quite early on in The Crown centres on the great London smog of December 1952, when a combination of millions of chimneys in London and certain atmospheric conditions created a deadly thick smog that engulfed London for five days. That was also something that happened from time to time, of course, in cities like Glasgow, the famous pea supers, if you’re of a certain vintage and generation. Fogs and smogs that were so thick that people used to follow the tram lines along the middle of the street to find their way home because the buildings were hidden, such was the density of the pollution around them.

And in the great London smog of 1952, it was estimated that about 12,000 people died as a result because of respiratory damage, but also just accidents. People were literally knocked down by buses that they couldn’t see coming. And in The Crown, Winston Churchill’s reaction to this smog is to dismiss all the fuss and concerns that are being raised about it.

At one point, there’s a scene where he shouts at people, it’s just weather, it’s just weather, it will pass. But as it becomes clear, the damage that is being caused, he changes. And later as a result, and as we know, there were clean air acts were introduced, a new technology replaced real fires, no doubt much to the annoyance of chimney sweeps and coal merchants.

But it means today that we live, thankfully in cities that aren’t saturated, in soot or blighted by smogs. In other words, there was an environmental problem caused by human pollution. And so humans helped by new technologies took action to clean it up.

And as a result, we have a much better and safer environment for millions of people. Why would you not have wanted that to happen? It improves the quality of life for God’s creatures. It shows love for neighbours, especially those that are weaker and more vulnerable.

It unspoils creation so it can more fully display the glory of its maker. And it’s looking after a world that Colossians 1 tells us was made through and by and for Jesus. So Christians, let me suggest right at the get-go, should be people who care about and look after their environment.

But first things first, we need to go back to the beginning. Because as with everything, if we are to properly understand our relationship to the environment, then our starting point won’t be Netflix, it will be Genesis. Because of course, it’s only in God’s words that we can truly make sense of the world around us and our place in it.

Now, we’ve seen as we’ve looked at the early chapters of Genesis, as Colin has taken us through those chapters in the last couple of Sunday mornings and last Sunday evening, that human beings, Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, are made in the image of God. These verses should be on the screen for you. We alone are described among all of creation as being made in God’s image.

So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. So in many respects, although in many respects we are like animals, we are animal-like, we are not just like other animals. Because in some way or ways, unlike other creatures, humans are God-like.

And I would agree with Colin, I got the summary of your sermon this morning, that the key to understanding or certainly a key to understanding what that image means is the idea that humans uniquely represent God in the universe that God has made. And that imaging of God that humans uniquely have means that human beings have a status in creation that is different from any other creature. As Jesus Himself said, you are of more value than many sparrows.

Humans also, I would suggest in respect to that God-likeness, are uniquely moral beings. That our lives, our existence isn’t just functional, it’s not just about survival, but our lives have an ethical dimension to them. That’s part of what it means to be human, part of what it means, I think, to be made in the image of God.

And we see that in the garden, don’t we? Adam and Eve alone of all of creation are given a direct moral command in the first instance about the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They have a moral responsibility to obey God, to trust God, and to make good choices. And that aspect of Godliness to do good cannot but, I would suggest, have implications for how humans are to relate to wider creation.

Indeed, however, broken or twisted at times, that moral sensibility, that image of God is broken in us and certainly broken across humanity, that actually it’s that moral sensibility that lies deeply behind many of the concerns that people have about the environment today. You might remember a few weeks back we were doing a series on the attributes of God. I think I was speaking of the justice of God, and I made the point that that almost universal human instinct for justice is something which reflects our divine origin, that that desire for justice, that recognition of injustice is an echo of the fact that we are made in the image of a God of justice.

And I think the same applies when it comes to this subject. I mean, why do you care if the last zebra in the game park gets eaten? I mean, lions don’t seem to bother, don’t seem to give them any sleepless nights. Why would you want to preserve a useless animal like a giant panda? I mean, we’ve seen the videos, haven’t we? I mean, what is going on with that creature? Why would you want to keep that? I mean, nature doesn’t seem particularly interested in preserving it.

I think it would have been snuffed out long ago if it wasn’t for human intervention. You see, that instinct to protect and to preserve is because we’re God-like. We are made in the image of a good Creator.

Human uniqueness is further seen in the fact that in the beginning, in Genesis as we’ve seen, men and women are given a divine mandate, Genesis 1 verse 28, the mandate not just to fill the earth, which is given to other creatures, but to subdue and to rule God’s creation. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Humans are given dominion over other creatures.

Now, those Hebrew words there, subdue and rule, are apparently quite strong words. They suggest the idea of a resistance that is to be overcome and mastered. It’s the reality that there are forces in nature and in creation that humans are not just to passively succumb to.

And remember that this is a mandate that is given before the fall. But again, I think this idea of ruling or subduing, controlling, is pointing us to the fact, again, that Adam and Eve have a unique God-like status in creation. There’s something unique and pertinent about that to the fact they’re made in the image of God.

You think about it, you know, God takes in Genesis 1-2 an unformed at that stage and chaotic world, and then he continues to work on it, doesn’t he? He configures it. He separates sea from land, from earth from sky. He cultivates it.

He fills it with animals. And then in chapter 2, we read that he planted a garden in it, and that implies that he was further shaping and separating and sorting within the creation that he’d originally made. And there’s a sense in which Adam and Eve are then put in or put upon the earth to continue that work, because the world that Adam and Eve were placed in was in that regard still unfinished.

There was still work to be done. See that in chapter 2, verse 15, Adam is to work and to take care of the garden there is on the screen. Presumably that involved continuing to plant, to dig, to irrigate, to shape, and to control that environment.

They were to work it, but of course, crucially, and we don’t want to miss this, they were to take care of it. They were to do that work carefully. You see, like God, human beings are creative beings.

We see that all around us. We love to put things together, don’t we? We love to make things and shape things and develop things and invent things and investigate things, whether that’s food or art or technology. Later on, Adam’s going to name all the animals.

God’s going to give him that particular task. It’s not a sin to dig a well, to make room for crops, to breed cattle, or to smelt iron. In Genesis 4, we have farmers, artists, and engineers.

Again, the verse will be up there, or maybe not. Oh, there it is. Ada gave birth to Jabal.

He was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes.

Zillah also had a son, Jubal Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. There’s no suggestion that that was a bad thing. Indeed, the Bible is full of examples of godly people doing those very things.

Vineyards are planted. Aqueducts are constructed. Cities are planned out and temples are built.

The subduing of the earth is part of humanity’s commission, and indeed, part of humanity’s glory as image bearers of God. It’s important just to state that because there are philosophies, of course, that would seek in some way to kind of deify nature itself, that would suggest to us that human activity is just a terrible blight upon the planet. It’s just a destructive force, that human development, that the use of resources by men and women is just some kind of evil, and that to be pure would be to leave the earth untouched and is left as much as a wilderness as possible.

Well, let me say that’s just not biblical from what we read in Genesis and in the Bible, nor is it frankly, I think, enlightened or indeed kind. Human development and rule has brought immense blessings and protections to humanity and indeed to wider creation. Shelter, energy, medicine, food supplies, the control of pestilence.

The last 300 years, life expectancy in Europe has increased from about 30 to 80 years. I mean, who of us would really want to live on these islands in 1400? Cold, tough, hungry, plague-ridden. But of course, such rule, such human development, if it is to truly reflect God’s image, will not just claim God’s mandate, but it will follow God’s methods.

That is, humans are not just to rule, they are to rule in a God-like way. God who rules kindly, generously, carefully, considerately, responsibly. God whose rule is never greedy or exploitative or harsh or reckless.

We get a flavour, a taste of God’s rule in Psalm 104. It’s a big, long Psalm. I’ve just quoted or put a few verses to give you a flavour of it on the screen.

This is God’s creation. This is God’s care of his creation. He makes springs, pour water into the ravines.

It flows between the mountains. They give water to all the beasts of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst.

The birds of the sky nest by the waters. They sing among the branches. He waters the mountains from his upper chambers.

The land is satisfied by the fruit of his work. He makes grass grow for the cattle and plants for the people to cultivate, bringing forth food from the earth, wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts. The trees of the Lord are well watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

And then later on in the Psalm, all creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather up. When you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.

But of course, the problem today is that much human rule and subjugation is not like that. It’s not God-like. It’s not kind or generous or careful or considerate or responsible, but it is greedy and exploitative and harsh and reckless.

Because of course, we are no longer in the world of Genesis 1 and 2. We live in the world of Genesis 3, the rebellion, the fall of Adam and Eve that turns service into selfishness. And the curse that followed that rejection, of course, fell not just on Adam and Eve, but on all of creation. The very fabric of the world, of the cosmos itself, became frustrated and distorted.

We’ll read some verses from Romans 8 in a minute that talks about that. Our world is a world of thorns and thistles and sweat and tears of earthquakes and disease. And actually, the fact that creation, in that sense, falls along with Adam and Eve, it’s interesting, isn’t it? That as Adam and Eve fall, the whole of creation is dislocated and put out of joint and subject to frustration itself.

Simply reinforces the unique status that humans have within God’s creation. We see that in Romans 8. We read that creation is waiting for its redemption, its restoration. But that restoration is contingent ultimately on the redemption of humanity.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. Only when the head, the representative head of creation, humanity is restored, ultimately will creation be restored to what God intended it to be.

Actually, as I reflected on that, it occurred to me that God’s cosmic curse, in that sense, is a great mercy, isn’t it? You know, when it faced with a corrupted humanity, God gave nature a chance to fight back. I mean, if we think that humanity’s post-fall exploitation of nature is bad enough, just how much worse it would have been if there was no resistance from thorns and thistles and other natural forces. And the storey of humans and the environment since has been the storey, really, of every aspect of human life.

It’s the storey of Jekyll and Hyde, isn’t it? The creature with the capacity for immense goods, but yet who is streaked through by sin and selfishness at every point. The rulers of creation who love their dogs and hunt animals to extinction. The rulers of creation who cultivate crops to feed the hungry, but burn rainforests.

The rulers of creation who create life-transforming products and poison the rivers with the waste. You see, the environmental problems we face ultimately are not because, as some suggest, because the Bible told humans that they were in charge, nor is it because there are too many humans on the planet. There’s plenty of space and resources if it was managed responsibly.

It’s ultimately because of human sin. It’s because humans are not godlike in their rule. Instead, they too often rule, as we have said, greedily and selfishly, without care, out of step with their maker.

And the consequences of that, along with the natural disasters brought by the fall, well, they’re all around us, aren’t they? Pollution, ugliness, extinctions, hunger, refugees. And so because of that, and because of that cosmically and divinely mandated link between humanity and creation, the great environmental fix that we need isn’t to get rid of humanity, but to fix humanity. Which is why we need a saviour.

It’s why we need a new Adam. We need humans to be born again, to be recreated in the image that they were intended to have. To become part of a new humanity that will rule over the world, as God always had mandated.

And actually the travails of the environment, those natural disasters, are just God’s reminders of that. Jesus says that in Matthew 24. Famines and earthquakes, they’re the birth pangs of new creation.

It’s creation straining for that day, for that redemption, for that new rule. Our groaning world is crying out for Jesus to come and put it right. Ultimately the answer to the good desires of Greta Thunberg’s heart is the gospel.

But that’s not to say there’s nothing that we can do or ought to do in the meantime. Any more than to say, because obviously the gospel is ultimately the answer to poverty or disease, we should just fold our arms and wait for Jesus to come back. No, we can both recognise, can’t we, that while we can ultimately fix the problems of a fallen world, we nonetheless have a responsibility and indeed an ethical imperative where we can to mitigate their worst effects and if possible to make it better.

So the poor might always be with us, but that’s not a reason not to have food banks. Just as Christians know that their own personal restoration is never going to be complete this side of new creation, we can still nevertheless strive and would want to make as much progress as possible towards that full restoration, even though we know we’re always going to fall short. So it’s right to seek to improve as much as we’re able our environment.

After all, a great blessing of the gospel now, both in our own lives but also for those around us, is to give a taster of what God intended. That could just be cutting your grass, having a garden that blesses rather than depresses your neighbours. It should be picking up your rubbish and your litter, not wasting precious resources like energy.

Might be getting involved in a community litter pick or a community garden project. For some, and I say some people because each of us only has a certain amount of energy and time to give to the many needs around us, that might be being involved in bigger projects or policy level work to improve the environment at more macro levels. In summary, as one theologian puts it, Christians are neither to denigrate nature or to deify it.

Creation has a purpose. It is God’s home for humanity. It wouldn’t have existed without humanity.

So any attempt to decouple the two is unbiblical. And the landlord of creation, of the environment God, placed humans in creation to enjoy it, to flourish in it, and yes, to develop it. But like all good tenants, we are to exercise our tenancy responsibly.

We’re to remember that we’re not the owner, we are tenants. So while we are to use the facilities, indeed we are mandated to run the facilities, we are also to keep them in a good state of repair, because the owner will come back. And by doing so, and we’ll close with this very summary which I alluded to at the start, we care for our environment in whatever way we’re able to do, and we have a concern about it, because by doing so, we show respect to the giver.

We recognise that it belongs to God, so we better be careful how we treat it, the kind of condition that we hand it back, so to speak. We show love to our neighbours, that is we bless rather than blight the lives of others. And thirdly, we allow God’s creation to reveal God’s glory rather than be those who obscure and mar it.

May God bless these thoughts from his words. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your creation.

Like the psalmist at the start, we marvel as we look at the handiwork of creation, of what you have made, the stars, the heavens. We look at this planet and all its wonder, its beauty, its intricacy. And Father, we are just humbled that you have placed us in it, that you have given us the gift to be here, to enjoy it, to flourish in it by your grace and your goodness.

And so Father, we want to be very conscious to treat it well, to respect it, to honour the gift, and in doing so, honour the one who gave it. Father, these are complex issues. Our world is very fraught over them in many ways.

But Father, we pray that in our lives, and as much as we’re able to bear influence, we will bear testimony both to the gift, but ultimately to the giver, that we will honour the one through whom and by whom and for whom all things were made. And we ask you to bless these thoughts to us in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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