New Genesis – God’s Mission

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

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One Story, One Mission

We're continuing in our message series of God's mission. And I'm really excited to be going through this journey with you guys and going over the story of God and the story of the Bible and what the Bible is about. And sometimes, when we dive into the Bible, we dive into Genesis, and that's Genesis. And then we go to Ruth, and that's Ruth. And then we go to Matthew or 1 Corinthians or Romans, and it's just all of these books that we check out from this library collection we know as the Bible, and we overlook why they're in there and how they all contribute to one underlying story and mission of God. This week we're going to be speaking about new creation, the new Genesis, if you will, and the promise that takes us all the way back to the beginning.

The Gospel of Reconciliation

Paul writes to Corinth. He's encouraging the church at Corinth with two different letters, one or two Corinthians. It's fascinating because while he's encouraging them, he's also rebuking them a little bit because he left there and everyone was good and everyone was united. Now all of a sudden everyone's falling back and forgetting the basic mission and story of what took place in this person of Yeshua. All these letters are his yearning to remind them. In 2 Corinthians 5, 14, the gospel is summed up. The mission of God—you can miss it, but the mission of God is summed up right here. Starting in verse 14: "So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here. All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

So that in him we would become the righteousness of God." I love, there's just so much here. Paul is saying that the king has come and God has provoked this mission of reconciliation to mankind, that mankind would no longer be separated from him through sin and death. He's brought us near to him through this person of Yeshua, this Christ, this king. And we are made to be the ambassadors of the king, the royal messengers of the king, so that God is making his appeal through who? Us. And then Paul says something profound. He says if anybody is in Christ, the new creation has come. Some translations will say you are a new creation.

I agree with both. The new creation has started.

The Promise of Isaiah

When Paul speaks about this creation, he's quoting a prophet, one of the bigger prophets, prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 65 and also 66. These are the last two chapters of Isaiah, and he's speaking about the ultimate climax of God's restoration in his good creation. Starting in verse 17, here's actually the section that Paul quotes: "See, I will create a new heavens and a new earth. The formal things will no longer be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever." When we look at this promise of new creation and this promise of restoration in this time where the deserts will bloom and the rivers will sprout out from the ground and life will spring up, the wolf and the lamb will lay down together and the snakes will eat the dust.

The animals will all eat straw. No one will be eating each other anymore. This time where weapons will be turned in, all of our guns will be turned into farm equipment because there will be no more war. There will be no more violence. And the peace of God will proclaim victory once and for all over all creation. When Isaiah speaks about this time where a new creation will come, it triggers something, because if there's going to be a new creation, what does that invoke? That there's already been one, right? And so where do we go to discuss that? Why is there a new creation? What happened to the first one? We go back to page one.

The Garden as Temple

As we've discussed a few weeks ago, and specifically in the Temple series a few months ago, we come to the creation account, and God plants this garden in Eden, and we know that this garden is presented as a type of sanctuary that's filled with God's presence. A temple. It's the first temple. Not simply the obvious connotations of the author of Genesis stating that you have the land and then you have Eden and then you have the garden within Eden. Of course, drawing our attention to the temple plans of the outer courts, the inner courts, and then within all of it, the holiest of holies. Even more subtle connotations are scattered through the creation account.

God walks in the cool of the day in Genesis 3a. Has anyone ever just kind of stood back and been fascinated at the idea of God walking through a garden? Does God have legs? Because Yeshua says he's a spirit. So I mean, you could say that more technically it should say like floating, right? No, it's walking in the cool of the day. Why is this language used? Because the author's trying to bring God to us, relate God to us. God is with us. We see several other times God walks. In Leviticus , Deuteronomy , and even 2 Samuel 7:6, God walks in His tabernacle and He walks among His people when His tabernacle is within their midst.

Clear connection. Back to the garden. And not only does the temple language describe God's most intimate, fulfilling presence among us, it's also described by the prophet Ezekiel as the garden of God. This is a slang for God's temple. Also the mountain of God in Ezekiel 28.

The Adam Figure in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 28, if you've never read it, it's fascinating. It's this almost pseudo-apocalyptic narrative about this Adam figure who is a high priest and he has the jewels around him and he walks between the pillars and the fires of God and he's in this garden, this temple scenario. This high priest figure, this Adam figure in Ezekiel 28, he sins against God and he's expelled from God's presence. It's retelling the story of the garden. We also have the core of the garden relating to the temple. The Ark of the Covenant sat where in the temple? Holiest of Holies, right? Right. And what sat within it? God's law, or his wisdom, if you will.

This echoes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What happens if you touch the ark? What happens if you eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil? Another aspect that I love about the temple iconography is the menorah representing the tree of life. Remember how when the menorah was made, it was made to look like a tree, right? With budding almond branches. I thought it was apple tree, but whatever. And it's fascinating because the tree of life is referred to in Proverbs as God's wisdom, the light that illuminates our path. I get a kick out of that because in God's living room, there was a tree with lights on it.

The Longing for Eden

And when we look at the illustration of Eden, we get a sense of completion. And we desire to feel God's peace that engulfs us there, and we get images of life and purpose that can only be met in God's presence. How many of you guys would like to go back to Eden? Can you imagine walking in the cool of the day and the peace of God is intimately surrounding you every step and no animals will harm you? You subdue the animals. They kneel to you and they move out the way and there is no violence, there are no threats, there are no fears. God's peace has overtaken your life in this place. You don't even have to worry about food.

The trees give it to you. Genesis 2, 10 states that a river came out of Eden, and from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first was Pishan, and it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good. Resin, onyx were also there. And the name of the second river is Gihon. And it winds through the entire land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris. And it runs along the east coast of Asher. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. And this river gives life to the garden. It waters the tree of life. It's living water.

It waters the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It waters everything.

The New Creation River

In Revelation 22 and Ezekiel 47, which give us a glimpse of this future semi-cosmic temple that's being built, it states that living water gushes out from under the threshold of the temple and waters all of the plants and trees and the banks. I love that. And this is actually a very important point because it frequently goes unnoticed. The book of Genesis, if you haven't noticed, is not specifically written in the style of a chronicle. And I guess this is kind of a big point because sometimes we look at Genesis and we look at it as this past event that happened a long, long time ago and it's not applicable to us today.

Genesis Beyond the Surface

It just tells us about how God created the universe, God named Abraham, and then here's that apple and Noah and that's it. And that's not really how the book of Genesis is—that's how the narrative leads us. The book of Genesis actually begins with a poem. It's a poetic narrative describing the greatness of God in creation, in his mission. And this mission entails a creation that is good, that he sat down and rested at the end of it. He sits down to reign over his good creation, and he creates a garden, and he places his image bearers within this garden to cultivate it. And this river of living water runs through the garden, giving life to every single thing that it touches. And this river not only flows from Eden into the garden, but it flows out to all nations to give them life. You get it? Wow. Garden of Eden just got kind of neat and relevant and applicable today. The living water rushes out to all nations to give them life.

Made in His Image

And in the Edenic storyline, God creates man to be his image bearer. And Adam and Eve are said to be his likeness and his image four times in the opening chapters of Genesis. And now I get to geek out a little bit. In the ancient Near East, in the ancient world, this phrase was used in many different cultures. And the idea is that a god would create a king that would become his image bearer. And what this did is this king was responsible for expressing the authority of that God over the land so that these gods would rule through their images and their reign would be manifest through their images. This was common in Egypt, Babylon, all of the surrounding nations of Israel.

The king was known as the image bearer of their God because he carried the authority of God. And this is the context of God making mankind into his image. The Hebrew word is zalim. It's used elsewhere as idol. It's something that represents something else. In Greek, it's fascinating. You might be familiar with this word. In Greek, the word for image is icon. It's an icon, right? Mankind was made to be God's icon. So when you sit down at your computer later, right? Totally relevant, I know. You typically have a lot of icons on your desktop, right? And what happens when you click on the icon, right? It brings forth a wealth of data and execution of a program that it points to.

The icon launches what it represents. It brings it forward. Icons don't just point to themselves. When they do that, there's an error that comes up. It doesn't work anymore. Icons are responsible for launching forth something far greater than themselves. And as believers, we represent God and our presence launches his presence into the world.

The Mission: Fill the Earth

Genesis states this. He gives a mission here. It states that, "Then God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Subdue it. What does that mean? When you subdue something, you always think of a police chase going on. Just me? Okay. Subduing the criminal, right? You chase it down. You have ownership over it. You own it. You have dominion over it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds in the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." God places Adam and Eve in this temple garden setting to protect it and to reign as kings through God's authority.

We see this when—what does God name, I mean, what does Adam name in the garden? He names something, right? All the animals? So the author of Genesis is trying to take us back to the first chapter, a page over, when God is naming all of the elements of creation. This is an authority that has been given to Adam to reign over creation. So he names the animals to demonstrate his God-given authority. And then God tells his image bearers to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, reign over it.

The Deeper Meaning of Eden

Now, the story of the Garden of Eden, at this point, is moving away from a straightforward literal narrative, and the author is asking you to read it literally, as my friend Ryan White would say. Dig a little bit deeper than what it's saying. The portrait we're getting here is that this garden in Eden is God's sacred space where his spirit is manifest. And the picture we're getting from the author of Genesis is his desire for his sacred space to extend throughout the earth. Did God want Adam and Eve to leave the garden? Fill the earth. How do we do that? We take the sacred space of God with us as the image bearers.

The Illustration

And so you guys remember when I pulled this out a couple of months ago? I really enjoyed drawing. And I wanted to do a quick illustration because this topic gets me really excited. And sometimes I don't think I can articulate it as well as I can draw it. And maybe that won't be the case here. We'll find out. That's for sure. And so the idea from the author of Genesis is that you have God. And it focuses on God in the first chapter and God's over creation. And so how are we going to represent God? Well, God's up here in heaven and I'm going to try to draw a crown. Don't laugh. Let's see. And we'll do some doodlies, right?

So we'll just say that God has a crown and this is God, okay? And then what does God create? He creates an earth, right? Right? Love drawing. This is fun. You guys entertained? So we're going to draw the earth, and there's a continent, and there's a continent, and there's a continent, and there's an island. Okay. Am I doing well so far? Am I? Okay. Good. So we have the earth. God creates the earth, and then he creates what? Man. His image bearer, right? So let's—there we go. Boom. He makes man his what? His image. Which is a reflection of who?

Image as Icon

So God puts his image on mankind, and the idea is that mankind will now be an icon for God. In other words, God's presence reflects off of his image. This is your job, by the way. This is your mission according to Genesis. But there's more—be fruitful and multiply. Now, the idea that our very human brains have is: okay, Adam and Eve need to have some kids —yes. But there's a bigger point to that. The bigger point is that they need to train up and make more image bearers, right? And so Adam is going to enter into the world now, and let's just say it's a garden. And their job is to be fruitful and multiply and take the sacred space of God and the reflection of God's presence into the world.

And then they're to make more image bearers. We got another one right there, and what are they going to do? And then maybe they'll be fruitful and multiply, and now they're going to have a new image bearer. And what has happened? God's domain has now been manifest completely in his good creation. This is your vocation, according to Genesis. And at least this is what the narrative is trying to tell us. This is the mission here.

The Critical Point

And this is where we have to be careful, because when we make the Bible say something that it's not saying, we end up getting in trouble, right? This is the perfect opportunity for critics of our faith to assert, "Well, so God's not over the earth right now? He needs all these image bearers to go out?" Well, no, that's not really what the story's saying. The story isn't really a story simply about God. The story's actually about you and your mission. Yes, of course God is over all of creation. The point is to tell us what our job is, not how God should do his. And if God wanted to be, you know, he's over all of creation—yes, check, done.

That's not what the narrative is telling us. It seems that this God in Genesis, this creator, he yearns to see his rule recognized over the earth through his image bearers. That's what the story of Genesis is telling us. And the story is telling us that his good creation is not yet full of image bearers that worship God. So Adam's job is to increase the image bearers and as a result, increase the boundaries of Eden itself. God yearns to increase his images and expand his sacred space, and the mission is to overtake creation with his presence and reign through his image bearers. Isaiah speaks about this.

It says, Psalms 8 speaks about the same thing. And man is given this authority, this vocation to be the human beings that God made us to be.

The Fall

And then in the story, something happens. And it happens rather quickly in the story of God's good creation. Genesis 3 ends up taking place. In Genesis 3, you're familiar with this. It starts out with a what? A serpent. A snake. Anybody like snakes? A couple people. Weird. Okay. In the Near East, snakes represented cunningness, wisdom, but not always a positive type. Always the organized negative forces, if you will. And it states that the serpent was more crafty than any other beast in the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, the serpent did, "Did God actually say you shall not eat any tree in the garden?"

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of this tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of it, she ate it, and then she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. See, an unclean animal enters this sacred space of God. This is what the narrative is telling us in the story.

If we follow the story, an unclean animal has now entered the sacred space of God, and this animal is not subdued by mankind. What does this animal do? He subdues mankind. He's going after mankind. He's not yielding to mankind. And mankind is not conquering it. And then, at the end of the story, the serpent begins to speak.

The Serpent Speaks

Now, a lot of people kind of get hung up on this part of the Bible. Anyone ever? Maybe not. At a very young age, you just kind of go along and okay, the Bible has a talking snake in it. And I spoke to some friends that are newer Christians, and they're like, yeah, that was a big struggle of mine. Like, I'm an adult, I believe in Christ, and I start reading the Bible, and there's a talking snake, like, on page three. Like, what do you guys do with this? I mean, can we admit that? Like, this is strange. I've never heard of this. I would emphasize that instead of focusing on whether or not or how there was a talking snake that spoke English or Hebrew or whatever language Adam and Eve spoke—tongues, whatever— instead of envisioning how this snake was able to verbalize these sounds and speak, I would submit, again, that the narrative is trying to get us to focus on something a little bit more important: what is the talking snake saying? Right? So let's focus on that.

You Can Be Your Own God

And here's what the snake says. He comes up to Eve and says, "God is against you. God doesn't want you to eat this fruit because you will be like him. You will know good and evil. You can be your own God if you eat of this fruit. You don't need this God's authority in your life. You can do what you want. This is your life. Look, it's good for food. Look what a delight it is. Look, you won't be wise for following God's authority. You can only be wise if you pursue autonomy from this God. This God is holding you back. You can be like him. You can be God if you only separate yourself from him." Can I ask you a serious question?

How many of us have heard those words whispered in our ears in our life? See, this is the power of the Bible. This is the power of God's Word. This story is not simply meant to be a story that took place thousands of years ago. Guys, it's a story that's still taking place today. We've all heard those words. Separate yourself from God. You can do it better without God's authority. How many of us have pushed God's authority out of our lives so that we can make our own world, our own creation, be our own God? Only to find ourselves slaves to the idolatry that we listened to in the first place. It's a disservice when we take a story as beautifully written and impactful as Genesis, and we simply make it something that happened thousands of years ago, and it's not relevant today, and we teach our children about, yeah, this fall of mankind that happened thousands of years ago, and they have no idea that they're facing the same reality in their lives today. God's word is big enough to be applicable today, and it was written in such a way that it is.

The Corruption Spreads

And so what happens? The image bearers have fallen in less than two chapters. Done. The image of God is now corrupt, and the icon no longer launches the right program, but it's a distorted image. It's corrupted. And so mankind continues to evolve in the image of this corrupted Adam, not in the image of God. From one generation to the next, you can read the scriptures, and the struggle is present every single page. The dream of once again being reconciled with God, no longer in exile apart from God, back in that good creation, back in that garden. Once again, being fully human as God created us to be, allowing God's presence to work through you and impact the world around you.

The Failed Reset with Noah

And a few chapters later in Genesis, we come to Noah, as we've mentioned in prior weeks. And what happens? Mankind is so distorted, so violent, that God sends a what? A flood. This is good. A flood. And what's a flood? What covered the earth? Water covered the earth. And then after a little while in this boat, what appears? Dry land appears. That sounds familiar. Oh, that's right. Just a few pages earlier in Genesis. This is a recreation. It's a story about recreation. It's trying to fix it. Did it fix it? Something still was keeping mankind from the garden after the flood. Nevertheless, God says to Noah after this whole incident: "And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."

This sounds like exactly what he told Adam. Go forth and be my image bearers, Noah. It's a new creation. Let's do this, right? Noah's given the same vocation, the same mission to be an image. Don't murder. Don't follow your own way. Be the image bearer of God and multiply the image bearers of the earth. Well, just as Adam fell in a garden, Noah seems to fall in the story in a vineyard. He gets drunk, modeling a distorted image for his children. So the story leads us along. And what's the result of this? Noah does not pursue multiplying image bearers. What happens to his lineage? In Genesis 11, people evolve from his lineage who are so rebellious that God has to scatter them all over the earth.

Rebellious people scattered all over. You see the story of Israel right there. It's not the first time. How will the mission of God be manifest in a creation overtaken by unabated sin? The world's turning into hell, violence everywhere, neglect for the poor, absence of any degree of hospitality. How will creation be fixed?

God Chooses One Man

Genesis 12, a man by the name of Abram. Abram enters the scene. He's introduced to us. And the focus of Genesis narrows from this whole world view to this one man. And God instills the same mission he gave to Adam, now with Abram. Do I have it here? "Now God said to Abram, go from your kindred and your father's house to this land. So leave and go out and I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Abram is going to carry something with him that's going to bless everybody he encounters. Abram, leave where you are, go out, impact every single family on this earth.

A Mission Passed Down Through Generations

In Genesis 17, God tells Abraham that he will multiply and fill the earth. It's an echo of the same mission. Abraham dies. Isaac, his son, takes up the same vocation in Genesis 26: "I will multiply you and bless you through all of the nations will be blessed." Isaac has a son by the name of Jacob. And guess what vocation is given to him? Go into this land, fulfill the vocation I gave to your father Abraham. And through this, I will multiply you and you will be fruitful. And you will be a blessing to all the families of the earth. You remember what Jacob's name was changed to, right? Israel. In Deuteronomy 35, verse 11, he states, "What do kings do?

They rule, right?" The vocation is being pushed forward. And Israel's offspring went into Egypt and became enslaved, and they cried out to God, and God rescues them, redeeming them to himself. He then charges them with the same type of vocation: Be a nation of priests, mediators of the divine and the earthly. For what purpose? To reconcile all nations. You will be the light that shines God's kingdom and the nations will become illuminated as the image bearers, reciprocating the reflection of God's reign through you, Israel. This is your job. This is what you're made to do. Go do this. And if you've been keeping up with this series, did Israel pursue this mission very well? They kind of botched the job a little bit.

Clean Before God, Corrupt in Action

They built God's temple, which was a sacred space of God. And this is the place where God's reign and presence was represented in its fullness in a building. But they never took the hope of what the temple represented: Eden expanding over all of creation to the nations. Never happened. Never happened. The temple was decorated with gold and silver, had angels in it, it was blossoming almond buds all over the place—all of the elements of the Garden of Eden right here in this temple. And they never pursued that hope for all nations. And they ended up losing it. In Jeremiah 7 and Isaiah 1, there are testimonies about how even though Israel had a temple, their hearts for the original mission of what the temple always stood for was towards their own agendas.

They would worship God in this temple, offer sacrifices and incense. They would dance and rejoice. "God is with us! Praise be our God!" They give each other a high five and say, "Shabbat shalom! Shabbat shalom!" They talk about how clean they are: "We didn't eat any pork this week. Yeah, I almost got that. I almost ate that dip that my aunt made and she puts lard in it, but boom, I didn't. Still clean, right? Oh, you're set apart! This is great! God is with us!" And then they would leave the temple and they would murder and they would sleep around and they would steal and they would gossip and they would mock the poor and they would pursue personal gain in God's good world.

So God destroyed the temple. He destroyed it. It had become an idol for them. What good is it? It had a purpose and its purpose was perverted through personal gain. And Israel was exiled from God once again and the prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Hosea began to speak and show this people that even though they had a building, they were still failing at their mission. Even though they had a mock Eden, that was not enough. There was something greater, something more intimate that needed to change in order for this vocation to take place. What needed to change and what needed to take place was the determination to stop yielding to the voice of the serpent telling you that you're better off apart from God.

This is the source of your failure. And as long as this corruption is maintained, a physical temple will always just be a box. What needs to change is what was corrupt from the beginning. And Isaiah specifically speaks about a time where God will cause all of the fallout of the destruction that we have caused to fade away. That violence would end, that forgiveness would reign, that peace would be more powerful a weapon than any nuclear or chemical bomb. A time when creation as we know it will be transformed. A new genesis will occur. And this new genesis will be totally sold out and committed to God's reign being manifest through its image bearers and His good creation.

And Isaiah speaks of a king that would come to serve and a servant who would suffer at the powers of this age. And this servant would not only overcome, he would be the king that proclaims victory over death and sin and evil and everything that we have contributed to God's good creation. And this would be a new Adam, a second Adam. Instead of being subdued by the serpent, he would subdue the serpent. He would fulfill the vocational calling of Adam and raise up a people that multiply and fill the earth with the glory of God.

Revelation Is a Book About Yeshua Winning

You guys ever realize that at the end of Revelation, right? How many of you guys would like to do a study in Revelation? I've been a fan of Revelation for a little while. A lot of things keep me from wanting to approach it because unfortunately we have done a horrible job in adding intention and context to the scriptures. And what we want them to say is, Hey guys, the rapture is happening next year during Passover, right? Is that the newest thing? Is it the 23rd of this year? This month? Rapture! I mean, right? I'm sorry. Anything that distracts us from the victory that Christ has proclaimed on this earth is a distraction and a distortion of the gospel of Messiah.

Period. Period. And when we have a people that is more focused on when God is going to come down and wipe out everybody, we need to be prepared to go through this suffering because we're going to suffer at one point in time, it's going to be horrible, and we're going to see our kids die in front of us. Oh, if that is our focus, then we've missed it. We've missed it. Revelation is a book about Yeshua winning. Yeshua won. It's the fifth gospel. It's taking what is presented in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and presenting it slightly differently from a different angle. Victory. Victory. And so as we get closer to the ending of this series, we may start on that.

But we're going to drag it back, get back on the interstate. So in Revelation, after this victorious king has overcome and overtaken, this proclaiming victory, the dragon, or as John puts, that serpent, the devil of old, is imprisoned. He's locked away. At the beginning of the story, we have a serpent that subdues mankind. And at the end, we have a serpent that is subdued by the Son of God. Corrected, right? That's part of the story of the Bible. It's beautiful.

A New Eden Will Be Manifest

Isaiah 65, 17 states, And I want you to imagine this. And the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind, but be glad and rejoice forever that which I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy and her people to be a gladness. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. No more shall be heard in the sound of weeping and the cries of distress. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together. The lion will eat straw like an ox. The dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy anything. So the prophet's speaking about a time when Eden will be manifest.

And he even emphasizes that a new Jerusalem is coming. Jerusalem, this new Jerusalem is a part of this new creation. As if the new creation is intimately tied to the new Jerusalem coming. Even a new temple, my holy mountain. But he's speaking in the language that this is all the earth. This goes back to what Zechariah talks about, when Jerusalem will have no walls, it will have no boundaries. All nations will be dwelling in it. Finally. Finally, the mission will be accomplished. A new Eden will be manifest.

Yeshua Is the Birth of a New Creation

In his gospel, John begins with John 1.1, and it states: In the beginning, what's that from? That sounds familiar. Oh yeah, page one. John's setting us up to go back to creation. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. This is Genesis. But John is not speaking about a first creation here, right? That we messed up. He's speaking about Yeshua. Yeshua. And John, in his gospel account, is starting it off by blending the narrative of Genesis and Yeshua together, and he's asserting that Yeshua is the birth of a new creation. The new creation. Everything that God promised in Isaiah has been launched through Yeshua. Everything that is part of God's good creation is manifest and made through Yeshua. This is what John says. This is what John says. John even writes about Yeshua in John chapter 7, referencing himself or the spirit within him as the living water. The living water. Oh, that's the river and water that's going to go to all nations and give them life. It's exciting. It's exciting.

Go Therefore, Make Disciples

And guys, worship team, you can go ahead and get set up, and if we can have the prayer team up. Remember what Yeshua tells his disciples in Matthew 28? This is Matthew's account. And this is how the gospel of Matthew, my personal favorite, ends. And it says that Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. This earth is no longer under the reign of darkness. This earth is no longer under the reign of the adversary. This earth is no longer under the corruption of the serpent. This is my creation. I've been given authority. I'm king. And then Yeshua gives us a mission. And he says, go therefore, make disciples of all nations. Yeshua has taken up Adam's vocation, and you get to be a part of that. That's what he's saying.

Who's the Image of God? It's Yeshua

Colossians 1.15 states that the Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of creation, the firstborn of God's good creation. Who's the image of God? Who's the completed, uncorrupted image of God? It's Yeshua. And it's through Yeshua that we are reborn as fully human beings that God intended us to be. It's through Yeshua that God can be manifest in us. It is through Yeshua that we can step out into the mission that God gave us to be. If you are in Christ, a new creation has begun. Paul is quoting Isaiah 15, And the tense that he uses is not something that we're looking forward to happening. He's saying that it's already begun. It's already begun. And we have a hope of its completion, but we're invited by God himself to pick up the mission and walk it out and contribute and to cultivate the garden as it manifests and spreads the glory of God over creation. And we're part of this.

There Is Hope in Him

And I don't know where you are today, what you're facing, what doubts you have in your own life, what anxiety you face in a day-to-day basis. I don't know what your world looks like. Maybe it's your marriage. Maybe it's your faith. Maybe it's an addiction. Maybe it's a struggle with your own desires. Maybe you've fallen into the trap of the voice of the garden. Whatever and wherever you are, the message of Genesis, the message of the Bible, is a message of hope. There is hope. There is hope in a resurrection. There is hope in claiming the promises of God. There's hope in grabbing hold of Yeshua. There's hope of rebirth.

And in Him, you can overcome. And in Him, there is life. And in Him, there is hope. And in Him, there is a new creation. And if nothing else, I want you to leave today knowing that the hope of these promises that God has decreed are for you. And we have a prayer team here today. And no matter what you're going through today, we have a fellowship here that can help, support, and pray with you. And I would encourage you, don't let the promises of God pass you by. Don't ignore the hope that only Yeshua can give, and don't walk away today holding on to something that is anchoring you back into an old creation that is keeping you from experiencing the newness and fullness of God's life through Yeshua.

In Him there is hope. In Him there is forgiveness. In Him there is no more mourning. In Him there is peace. You don't have to live out the person of an old creation. The second Adam has come, and the serpent has been overcome and you can be a part of that victory. Shalom, I'm Matthew Vandrells and I hope you enjoyed this message. Founded in Truth exists to cultivate a fellowship of image bearers that live the redeemed life only Yeshua can give. If this ministry has been a blessing to you, we would love to hear from you. Send us an email through the contact form on our website and tell us how God has used this ministry to edify your faith and relationship with Him. If you'd like to see more messages like this one, subscribe to our YouTube channel by clicking here.

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