Father, we ask that the Holy Spirit would move with might and power and deep conviction in this service.
Father, we are so glad that we do not have to think, well, we've come and we hope that you show up.
That, Father, you are almost always more ready to move with power than we are to receive that power.
You are always more ready to speak than we are to listen.
You are always more ready to listen than we are to speak.
And that even our speaking and our listening is a gift from you.
So we ask, Father, that your Holy Spirit would move with power within us, that we might be honest about our questions,
that you might fan into flame within us a deep longing and yearning to know you and to be known by you.
And we ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
Some of you have never heard the Athanasian Creed before.
I like to call it, I should have had Matt give a bit of an introduction.
We've switched our, I wanted to have that creed in it so we're not having a gospel text.
I'm preaching on the Colossians text, which Shane read so brilliantly, so powerfully.
And if you listen to that text and it talks about Jesus, that creed is a bit of an explanation,
a further reflection upon what the Bible was teaching.
So if you're not familiar with it, you can Google it, Athanasian Creed.
It's well worth reflection.
So I don't know how many of you are listening very carefully.
It's not a test, not a quiz.
It's, as Shane read, Colossians chapter 1, verses 15 to 20.
But if you did, then for Canadians living today, when you hear this text, it is a very hard passage for Canadians.
It's a hard passage for some who've grown up in very conservative evangelical churches.
It would be a main reason why many Canadians are not Christians, because the text, in fact, completely and utterly goes against naturalistic evolution.
And, in fact, actually, it's almost like people, Christians are, just even for me to say naturalistic evolution and Christianity in many people creates tension,
a little bit of worry, because it's one of those things that, for a lot of us Christians, we'd rather not think about.
We'd rather just sort of park it out there and not have to think about it.
But the fact of the matter is, is that given that naturalistic evolution, as taught everywhere,
and this is how Canadians would think it, naturalistic evolution is taught in elementary school, high school, university.
It's taught by the media.
It's taught by entertainment.
And it's viewed as being scientifically true.
Doesn't that mean that the text that we just read is wrong in a serious way?
That's the question.
Now, if you think I'm making this up or making it look more difficult than it is, let's open the Bible and have a look at it.
And for some of us who don't have Bibles, if you need a Bible, by the way, there's Bibles here as a gift.
You have to keep it if you take it, but we'd love it if you had a Bible, if you didn't have one already.
Look at the text.
And I'll just read the text through once.
I'm going to draw out a couple of things from it.
But you'll see that it's not as if it's saying, in fact, it's a very inconvenient text for a lot of Christians.
Because it's not as if it says, you know, creation, and it sort of slips in there once.
And you see it with a little quick, quiet voice, hoping that nobody notices.
In fact, this doctrine of creation is trumpeted by the text.
So listen to it again.
The sun, that's the he, the sun is the image or the icon, that's the Greek word, of the invisible God.
The firstborn of all creation.
Now just pause there.
Even the very word creation implies that there's a creation and that there's a creator who's created the creation.
It doesn't say he's the firstborn of the world or he's the firstborn of everything or he's the firstborn of the planet or anything like that.
It actually uses this word creation, which implies, well, that everything that exists has been created by a creator.
I'll read it again.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him, all things were created.
And not only does he create all things, just to make it clear, the writer says,
He created in heaven and all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.
All things were created, said another time, through him and for him.
And I'm not going to talk at all really about this during the sermon, but that little bit about thrones, dominions, rulers or authorities or four different ranks or classes of angelic beings.
Okay?
But we're not going to talk about that.
But we're going to talk about that in a couple of weeks when the topic comes back up later on.
But listen again, the end of verse 16.
All things were created through him and for him.
And he is before all things, which implies creation.
And in him, all things hold together, which once again implies creation.
And in fact, it actually implies something else because, you know, there's this wonderful Bible text in 1 Corinthians that says that if Jesus hasn't risen from the dead, we of all human beings are most to be pitied.
And if, in fact, we have a text and we claim that a man who's dead is the one who holds everything together, to believe that a man who is dead holds everything together is another word for delusion and delusional.
So this text is making a very, very, very stark claim.
And then it goes to continue.
It gets, in a sense, to the safer religious part.
But if you notice, and this is a very inconvenient truth, the text, and it's just like John chapter 1.
It's just like Hebrews chapter 1.
It's just like lots of places in the Bible.
The Bible very clearly connects the doctrine of creation with the doctrine of salvation.
So, in other words, if it's wrong about creation, it's going to be wrong about salvation.
If it's wrong about the resurrection, it's definitely wrong about all things being held together by him.
Like, it's just wrong.
I mean, that's what we have to say if we have a brain.
Listen to what happened.
So it goes from the creation, very, very stark term.
And by the way, this is Jehovah Witness.
This is a Jehovah Witness graveyard, by the way, this whole text.
Because it's said in so many different ways very clearly this claim that God, the Son of God, is the second person of the Trinity.
And then verse 18,
And he, that is the Son, that is Jesus, is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Listen to verse 19.
And the word there, dwell, is actually the same word for tabernacle.
In other words, just as in the Old Testament it was believing that God was in some ways, in some sense,
present in the tabernacle in the middle of his people, that in fact, actually all of God's fullness,
all of God's fullness, with nothing left over, in fact, dwells, tabernacles in the Son.
Read verse 19 again.
And by the way, that's actually a very shocking thing.
We'll talk about that at the end of the sermon.
Going from these high, what we would consider to be abstractions of the creation and sustaining of all things,
down to blood on a cross is a very jarring move.
And it's intentional, obviously, by the author.
So, I mean, I don't have hours to talk about this,
but the fact of the matter is that most Canadians would say that science has clearly settled the idea
that science has discovered how all things have come to be.
And all things have come to be, fundamentally, through a combination of randomness
and randomness working on the basic normal principles of matter.
There's no direction.
There's no purpose.
It's just random.
And then once out of randomness life developed,
then the continued development of all things is still randomness,
but it's randomness connected with this mechanism called natural selection.
And that accounts for the creation, for the existence of all things.
That's just what would be taught.
If I was to say that at Ottawa, you, people would say, yeah, that's right.
Say that in your high school biology class, they'd say, yep, that's right.
Say it to the CBC, the National Post.
Yep, that's right.
But here the Bible is saying that all things haven't come about by such a mechanism.
That's what it's saying.
So what do we do?
So I want to just think about a couple of...
Here's one of the things about me.
And it's maybe just the peculiarity of me.
Maybe it's the peculiarity of my vocation.
And the sermon's not about me.
But I think it's important for Christians to recognize
when they have either an oil or water view,
that they sort of have a little religious view,
and then there's their science view.
And the Bible doesn't allow that.
And it's best if we walk towards things that make us anxious about the biblical text.
In fact, that's partially what church should be about,
not just the worship on Sunday mornings.
That's why small groups are so important.
That's why having mentoring and discipleship relationships are so important,
where you have a context, a safe place,
where you can help people say,
you know what, to be honest, we have a fear around this, don't we?
Let's walk towards it so we can understand what the Bible teaches,
and let's help each other to understand it.
That's once again why church is important,
why small groups are important,
that we can walk towards things that make us anxious.
So here's the first thing.
This doctrine or teaching of evolution is a challenge to all worldviews,
all religions, all spiritualities, and all ideologies,
not just Christians.
Now this is something which nobody in our culture recognizes.
The way our, you know, people talk about social construction of knowledge.
Sorry, I just lost some of you for a moment.
But the fact of the matter is that people think that that's,
I've had this conversation time and time and time and time again
with people in coffee shops,
where they think that somehow applies to me but not to them,
as if somehow or another they're exempt.
Or if they come up with a challenge to the Christian worldview,
that they somehow or other think that they don't have to come up
with an account of that reality.
But the fact of the matter is,
just think about it for a second with the issue of racism.
If naturalistic evolution is true,
why isn't racism fine?
Like, why not?
If white people are in power,
why should I give that up?
Like, why?
If naturalistic evolution is true,
if human beings are just a product of accident,
if human beings might not have developed,
if randomness had worked in a particular way,
if there's nothing inherently special about human beings,
and in fact, if actually the fundamental thing that accounts for the reality of all things
is an account that the strong survive and the weak don't,
and that often the strong survive and the weak don't because the strong eat the weak,
then why should we believe in,
why is racism wrong?
Like, why are there human rights?
Like all critical theory,
well, why don't they have to deal with evolution?
Like native spirituality,
why doesn't that have to deal with evolution?
Like, the fact of the matter is,
is that this scientific account
is something that every system of thought has to answer.
This is always an important thing for us to remember
because sometimes when we try to account for the Christian faith,
it might not sound perfect,
but you know what?
I would suggest that every single time
you'd give the Christian account of a problem
and compare it to other accounts,
you'd end up saying,
gosh, that's a good account.
That's the best account.
I mean, native spirituality has no way of dealing with evolution,
nor does Hinduism or Buddhism,
nor does Islam,
and definitely not Marxism and feminism
and transgender and social justice warriors.
None of those things.
They've not even begun to ask those questions
in terms of how you give an account in light of this.
So it's not just a question that Christians have to answer.
Everybody has to answer it.
And here's the second one.
The second thing is that naturalistic evolution
is in trouble because of science.
Naturalistic evolutionary theory is in trouble
because of science.
Because the more science develops,
that particular account
that everything is due to randomness,
interacting with particular,
the properties of stuff,
and then naturalistic selection,
accounting for the growth
after life has developed randomly,
the fact of the matter is
is that as science develops,
that entire theory is problematic.
You see, one of the problems is,
for instance, the Big Bang,
which is what science has now come to believe,
that combined with the well-known law
of the second law of thermodynamics
that everything is running down,
those two truths
mean that you have to have a creator.
Like the Big Bang
means that things haven't existed forever.
Part of the entire argument for evolution
is that if you have forever,
then anything can happen,
including this.
But you don't have forever.
Science has now shown that doesn't happen.
Things aren't forever.
There was a beginning.
But the fact of the matter,
not only is there a beginning,
but there's this contradictory thing
that doesn't actually explain
how you could ever have a Big Bang
because the second law of thermodynamics
shows that everything is running down.
And not only that,
and this is a far more important thing,
is that the further science goes to develop,
can take science between now
and when naturalistic evolutionary theory
was first propounded by Darwin,
is the more that scientists study,
the more they see design,
and not just design,
but intricate design
that is irreducible.
A couple of weeks ago,
Daniel gave the illustration
of the mousetrap,
and that's a very, very simple thing
of something which is irreducible,
where you need wood,
you need pegs,
you need a spring,
you need a spring to be armed,
you need an arm to keep the other arm down,
you need peanut butter.
And the fact of the matter is,
is that the more science studies things,
they see something like a mousetrap
already put together.
In other words,
you don't just find pieces of wood
and pieces of metal
and pieces of this and pieces of that,
but to have an actual mousetrap,
you need it all to be put together and armed.
And just talk to some of the people
in the room here
who are scientists and who are doctors,
and they'll tell you
that you go into things,
what you discover,
as science,
as biology progresses,
as genetics progress,
what they find
is irreducible complexity,
and it's not just complexity,
it's complexity that is
clearly best understood
as a design feature.
So the fact of the matter is,
and this is something
which people don't want to talk about,
but as science progresses,
the theory becomes
far more complicated.
The third problem is
that we don't actually believe
in the account of naturalistic evolution
anywhere else.
And it's sort of ironic
because the big, big, big, big, big thing
which we believe it in,
when it comes to small things,
nobody believes it.
Nobody believes it.
Not one single person on the planet
believes it.
Perfect illustration.
I've used it before.
Let's say there's a young man
in this congregation,
and he's been dating a young woman,
and he wants to ask her to marry him,
and he knows that this young woman
loves going for walks.
In fact, there's a particular,
it doesn't matter if it's young or old,
just a man and a woman,
and they know that there's a particular place
that they love to walk.
And so the man comes up with this idea,
you know how I'm going to do it
to ask her to marry me in a way
which is just, I think, just so cool.
You might think it's corny,
but he thinks it's cool.
How about me and a buddy,
there's this really lovely place
where you come for a walk,
and there's a bit of a green hill
just on the side,
and why don't you and I
get some field stones,
and with the field stones,
spell out,
Sue, will you marry me?
Bob.
And so you think,
well, that's the coolest thing in the world.
Let's do it.
So you go there,
you get the stones,
you know, and the field stones,
you make all that little pattern,
so it's very, very clear.
You know, you look,
people walk by and say,
what are you doing?
You say, I want to ask this woman,
Sue, to marry me.
Oh, way to go.
Sounds cool, whatever.
Sounds lame, or whatever.
And then, you know, you do it,
and you keep your buddy in the background,
so no person comes and moves all the stones,
or something like that, you know,
and says, you know,
will you sue me, Bob, or whatever, you know.
But it keeps the message,
the message in the right order, right?
Because if you put Sue in the wrong spot,
it'll think you want to sue a person,
you just can't spell.
But anyway, you know what I mean, right?
Or you move the letters,
it looks all completely different.
And so finally,
the man and the young woman,
they're coming,
they're holding hands,
and as they come to the spot,
he sort of nudges her,
so she looks over,
and if she looks over it,
and then keeps walking with no comment,
and then you say,
well, what do you think about that sign?
She said,
you know,
there was an earth tremor the other day,
it's the weirdest thing in the world,
that that earth tremor caused field stones
to go in that pattern.
Like, who'd believe that?
You know what?
If that actually happened to you,
you could get people buying you beer for years
just to tell the story of the crazy woman
who didn't recognize the field stones saying the message.
Right?
And let me ask Jeremiah afterwards
how more complex DNA is to that.
Like, it's not just like twice as complicated,
it's like exponentially more complicated.
Nobody believes the theory.
Anywhere else.
If we got a message from space
that was going beep, beep, beep, beep,
in a certain type of pattern,
very, very simple,
we'd know that there was something out there.
And yet when it comes to the origins of all things,
we believe this theory.
And here's the final thing I'd like to say.
The fact of the matter is,
is that this passage of Scripture
is profoundly wise and wonderful
and fits with science and the Bible
and our experience
and in fact encourages science.
Now, I've said before,
and I'm not arguing against
the literal reading of Genesis chapter 1,
but what I think is
that the discussion between Christians
and the world
should have focused on texts like this
where John chapter 1
where it says,
in the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
All things were made through him
and without him nothing was made that was made.
In him was life
and the life was the light of men.
And Christians should have had
our conversations with our secular friends
over John 1
and Colossians 1 verses 15 to 20
and Hebrews 1 verses 1 to 3.
And that's where we should have had the discussion.
And here's the wonderful thing
about the doctrine of creation.
The doctrine of creation
tells us both that God creates all things,
but it doesn't tell us anything
about how deep creation is
or how big the backstory is
until we look.
I'll give you two illustrations
of what I mean by that
because you probably don't understand it.
This insight came in,
and I don't know,
I can't really say this.
Maybe we should turn it off for a second.
No, don't turn it off for a second.
You know, Andrew hangs around sometimes
after the service.
He puts things on the screen.
Am I allowed to say that?
I'm going to get in trouble.
Anyway, he does.
He puts music or something.
So maybe,
if those of you who know Star Trek
and those of you who know Q,
go back and go on Google
or look on YouTube
for some episode in Star Trek
where Q shows up.
And one of the things
that Q can do in that
is he makes everything,
he makes a whole pile of things
out of nothing.
I remember one clip,
I'm not really a Star Trek person,
I watch it occasionally,
that all of a sudden Q
would make it look like
the entire crew of Star Trek
was like Robin Hood.
All of a sudden,
there are horses
riding through the woods.
Now, the viewer knows
that Q just invented that
out of nothing
three minutes earlier.
But they're not riding on horses
that are three minutes old.
They're riding on
five-year-old horses.
The trees that are all around
them aren't three minutes old.
If you cut down a tree,
it would have the rings.
It would show that the tree
is in fact very, very old.
In fact, part of the episodes
are that the crew
is always trying to figure out
if it's an hallucination,
is it a vision,
what's going on,
but the things they read,
like, right?
I have that right, right?
Everything seems to work.
Like, it seems to be
completely and utterly real.
And what that means
is if you went into a world
that a situation
that Q is just created
out of nothing
and you brought
all of your science
and you cut down the trees
and the trees might have
80 rings,
100 rings,
150 rings,
20 rings.
It's a certain time of the year
that, like,
there's stuff on the ground
because, you know,
the leaves and other stuff
fell off the tree
onto the ground
and yet it's only
three minutes old.
You see,
in fact,
the matter is
is that God could have
created things
like this set,
but he didn't.
Sometimes,
when I have
one of my younger
grandchildren,
they get to a certain age
and they come to visit
from another city
and they come to church
and in some cases
they've asked
because kids,
in case you didn't know,
aren't allowed up on the stage.
So they ask
after the service
if they can come up
on the stage
because they're curious
because they find it
so fascinating
that a room
that looks real
that you can go behind it
and it's not real.
And God could have made
a universe like that.
He's God.
If he decided to do it,
he could.
But the fact of the matter is
is that the doctrine
of creation implies
it would be as if,
you know,
a set designer
makes not just a room
but a street
and streets
and a whole city
or something like that.
And the fact of the matter is
is you don't know
how big the creation is
until you look
but the doctrine of creation
just like Star Trek shows
it's an odd way
to comment on the Bible
but it's a good one
is that creation
out of nothing
can have something
which is unbelievably deep.
Why did God do it?
Well,
I don't know why God does it.
Those of us in the room,
those of you in the room
who are scientists,
they can say,
well,
it's really cool,
you know.
Like knowing this whole
back story
and depth to creation,
that's how we figure out
things that help us
to figure out diseases.
That's how we figure out
things that connect
animal research
to human beings
that allow science
to develop
and that's how we figure out
things about the nature of light
and that's how we figure out
all of these things
and the book of Genesis
tells us that God
created the earth
so that we could
tend the earth,
that we could be fruitful
and multiply,
that we could tend the garden
and God designed creation
whether he made it
in six days
or in one second,
whether he made it
5,771 years ago
or whether he made it
whatever the length
of time is,
is that once he created it,
it's deep,
it's thick,
it has a profoundly
huge back story
and you can't tell
by looking at creation
actually on one level
in a sense
how old it is.
Like you can't.
But does that mean that
and so this is
the wonderful thing
and in fact this is
and it's only been
in the Christian worldview
that science
was able to develop.
there's always been cleverness.
People have always been able
to figure out
how to do this
or how to do that
or how to do something else
but science isn't just
being clever.
Science is working on theories
and making connections
and from your theories
and connections
making new discoveries
and that's what science is
and science developed
out of the Christian worldview
because they understood
that it was creation
designed by an intelligent creator
so you go looking
for reasons and connections.
And if we understand
that the real battle
the real battle
is not over
whether the earth
is young or old
that's a really good question
but it's not that.
The real issue is over
whether or not
there is a creator
who has created all things
and sustains all things
and that that creator
is the triune God
and only the triune God
can possibly account for it.
That and the alternatives.
Once you understand
that the doctrine of creation
that God's created the world
deep, wide, big, thick
with a huge backstory
you are freed up to discover.
You are launched.
Go ahead and be a geologist.
Go ahead and be a physicist.
Be an astronomer.
Don't worry about those things
because you're just looking
at this wonderful profound world
that God has created
with a huge backstory
and he designed it out of love.
He designed it with intelligence.
He designed it with creativity.
And look for design
and rejoice in it.
And the fact of the matter is
is that design shows
that there must be a designer.
Just as seeing
Sue, will you marry me Bob
implies that somebody wrote that
and sustained it.
And I spent a long time on this
because it's a big problem.
I just want to suggest that
this text propels us
or grounds us
to launch into mystery
and into coherence.
It grounds us as Christians
to launch ourselves
into the mystery of existence
and into coherence.
Listen again to the text.
He is the image
of the invisible God.
Now, the word image
is a technical word.
It doesn't mean...
It could be that
if that's all you had,
you'd think,
okay, well, there's God
and it's his picture.
Like, you know,
like Lisa would much rather
have Andrew
than a picture of Andrew.
Like, the picture of Andrew
isn't the same as Andrew.
And it might be possible
that we don't know
the philosophical language
and you hear that
and you think
that it's just like
a picture of God.
But it's actually...
It's actually really,
really important.
If you go back
and read in Genesis chapter 1,
it talks about human beings.
One of the reasons
that racism is wrong,
one of the reasons
that anti-Semitism is wrong,
one of the reasons
that all prejudice
and discrimination is wrong,
is that out of all
of the things
that have been created
by God,
only human beings
are made in his image.
And every human being,
it doesn't matter
if you're from Asia
or from Africa
or from England
or Scotland or Wales,
it doesn't matter
if you're Inuit,
it doesn't matter
if you are
an indigenous person
in Peru,
every single human being,
it doesn't matter
who you are,
it doesn't matter
how handicapped you are,
it doesn't matter
how young
or how elderly you are,
you are made
in the image
and likeness
of the true
and living God
and have an inherent
worth and value
that is there by God,
not something
the state gives you.
The wise state
recognizes it
and does not try
to usurp to itself
the power to determine
the worth and value
of human beings.
It is a feature
of totalitarianism
and evil to think
that only the state
can determine
your value.
Christians have been
guilty of horrendous
racism,
but they should not
have read their Bible
and been led to that.
They cannot read
their Bible
and be led to that.
This particular,
and so you notice,
human beings are made
in the image
of God,
but God,
the Son of God,
is,
he's not in thee,
he is the image.
And it's a little
tiny bit like,
given that the word icon
and you use icon
now for computers
and you click on
the icon the way
that it doesn't matter
what,
you know,
it's Apple
or Microsoft
or whatever,
you click on the icon
and you get the whole thing.
The same sense
in the sense
when you click on
the God,
the Son of God,
you get all of God.
But it's not just
this phrase
because it doesn't
just say this,
the rest of it
helps to make it clear
that that's the way
you're to understand it.
And listen to this.
The Son is the image,
in other words,
he's fully God,
of the invisible God.
It's also telling us
that the God
who by his very nature
is invisible
has revealed himself.
We can't figure out
the invisible God.
Only the invisible God
can reveal himself
in a way
that we can understand it.
that's reason
to think
that by my mysticism,
by my technology,
by my poetry,
by my thinking
that I can figure out
the invisible
is foolish.
The invisible
must be made visible.
The invisible
must make himself visible
for me to have a sense
of the fullness
of the invisible God.
That's what the text says.
He is the image
of the invisible God.
The firstborn
of all creation
implies that
before creation was,
there was the Son.
Go back and listen
to the Athanasian Creed.
The relationship
of the Father to the Son
is not that he is made,
but begotten.
And even the language
of firstborn,
which Jehovah Witnesses
might want to talk about,
but here's the entire thing,
is we beget
what has our nature.
There's three women
in the congregation
right now
who are expecting a child.
The child will be human.
Begotten.
Not made,
but begotten.
And firstborn
also implies preeminence.
For by him,
all things were created
in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones
or dominions
or rulers
or authorities.
all things were created
through him
and for him.
In other words,
there's a purpose.
It isn't just one
dang thing after another
and then you die.
And the human race
has one thing,
dang thing after another
and then eventually
the sun becomes
a huge ball of fire
that obliterates
all life.
It isn't just one
dang thing after another.
There is in fact
a story with a beginning,
a middle,
and an end.
And if there is a story,
there is a possibility
of meaning.
And if we are made
in the image
of the invisible God
and have a worth
and a value
and a dignity,
it means that there is
in fact
the possibility
of a meaning
and purpose
for your life
and for mine
that cannot be found
apart
from our creator.
and he is before
all things,
verse 17,
and in him
all things
hold together.
You see,
that's what I mean
by on one hand,
this text,
it's a very small text,
a very simple text.
You can memorize the text.
You should memorize the text.
But it launches us
into this mystery
of the bigness
and the largeness
of the world
and also the coherence.
You see,
social construction
of knowledge
and social construction
of reality.
What is hidden
from most Canadians
but they feel it
at some level
is the fundamental
incoherence of things.
You have one way
of counting for existence
which is naturalistic evolution.
You have a completely different,
completely and utterly
separate from that,
different understanding
of what it's like
after you die
and you become
some wispy,
ethereal,
spiritual type of thing.
And in the meantime,
you have all of these things
if you see the beauty
of the world
and you see
your own longings
to either create beauty
or enjoy beauty
or communicate beauty
and you have that.
But how does that fit in
with anything else?
And then apart from beauty,
you have this whole other thing
of a concern for justice.
And then you have
this whole other thing
about trying to have things
like families
and friends
and social gatherings
and nations
that hold together.
But that's not connected
to evolution
and that's not connected
to the end
and that's not connected
to beauty
and that's not necessarily
connected to justice
although it is
in a certain type of a way.
And the fact of the matter is
is that most Canadians
live in a world
which is incoherent
and broken
and has no mystery.
You hear the Bible's profound messages
the same God
who created all things.
The Father, the Son,
the Holy Spirit,
three persons,
one God
who's created through the Son.
That same God
reveals His existence
in the person of the Son
in a way that can be seen.
And the same God
who's created all things
is the same God
who holds all things together.
And the same God
who's created all things
who holds all things together
is the same one
who will bring
is central to the purpose
of all things
and the end
of all things.
And all of the Greek words
that use
the telos word
implying an end
are the same words
in the original language
of Greek
that's used for beauty.
that the end of all things
is beautiful.
Like it's beautiful.
Beauty isn't something separate.
Beauty is woven into everything
and we know that
but it's coherent
within this Christian worldview.
And since all things
are held together through Him
that means that justice
and mercy
and goodness
and truth
and beauty
and family
and friends
and neighbors
and nations
that there is this possibility
that there is
at the heart of all things
broken and marred
by the fall
by sin and evil
which has come into the world
through human beings
through Adam and Eve
and then for every single
other human being
that adds to the bentness
and the brokenness
of the world
but before all these things
at the end of all things
and held together
even now
in brokenness
and scarring
is this same God
who holds all things together
the Father, the Son
and the Holy Spirit
and the same God
who creates and sustains
the same God
who is the source of beauty
and of justice
and truth
and mercy
and love
and community
and friendship
and life
who is the God of life
is the same God
the very same God
who redeems
and no Christian
has to choose
between being saved
and being smart
between being saved
and doing art
between being saved
and pursuing justice
between being saved
and working in the government
to see a just social order
or in business
to create a just economy
you don't have to choose
between things
because the same one
who saves
is the same one
who is the source
of creation
the source of beauty
of meaning
of truth
and that's too big
for any one person to do
there's this mystery
this mystery
profound mystery
of coherence
of this
unending vistas
that we can enter into
and it's the same one
who opens our eyes
to these unending vistas
and grounds our longings
and our yearnings
is the same one
the same one
who takes on flesh
and dies a death
of crucifixion
at a point in time
in history
and sheds his blood
in the mystery
of the gospel
can't you see
it's only if you
understand this
that you understand
how it is
that this one death
can fix
all creation
listen to verses 18
and he is the head
of the body
it goes from
these wonderful things
he is the head
of the body
what is the body
it's the church
this means it's
in a sense
it's the church
it's the same church
you and I
have a local church
but we are connected
to other true believers
in Christ
in all the other
gospel shaped churches
and we're also connected
to the true believers
in Christ
that have worshipped
today in Sydney
Australia
in Nairobi
in Kenya
and in Singapore
and in Beijing
and in Vancouver
later on in the day
and in Japan
we're all part of that
not only that
but we're also
we're part of the same
body as Augustine
who's been dead
hundreds of years
and Calvin
and Mother Teresa
and Francis of Assisi
and Billy Graham
just one body
the church
but he is the head
of that body
the church
he is the beginning
the first born
from the dead
because the God
who truly does exist
is a God of life
not a God of death
death is a result
of sin
and God saw
our death
and our sin
and our inability
to deal with it
and out of love
and justice
and mercy
and compassion
acted
to do what we could not do
for ourselves
but to reconcile us
to him
that in everything
he might be preeminent
for in verse 19
for in him
all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell
and such a wonderful phrase
right
look at this
how it goes
for in him
all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell
and through him
to reconcile to himself
all things
whether on earth
or in heaven
making peace
by the blood
of his cross
only the creator
can count
for all of the creation
only the gospel
is the means
by which
a human being
can be made right
with God
by faith
and trust in him
and to receive
the gospel
you go
and you look
at the world
this is my father's
world
I wonder about
quarks
I wonder about
DNA
I wonder about
dance
I wonder about
business
I wonder about
government
I wonder about
how I can speak
against racism
I wonder how I can
act against abortion
I wonder what I can do
to make things
more prosperous
I wonder about
how I can bear witness
to Jesus
I wonder how I can
share
how wonderful it is
that he died on the cross
for me
and wants you to
receive him too
that's the world
you enter into
friends
please stand
Andrew if you could
put up the general
thanksgiving
I think this general
thanksgiving
was written by
Cramner
back in the
1540s
that's a long
time ago
and I think
in many ways
we're going to
say this prayer
we're going to
pray this prayer
every Sunday
at the end of the
sermon while we're
going through
Colossians
I think it
brilliantly
encapsulates
so much
of the Christian
message
and so much
of what the
book of
Colossians
is trying
to communicate
for us
so I invite
you to pray
it with me
and then I'll
just say an
extemporaneous
prayer in
closing
before
I think it's
Matt who's
coming up
to lead the
intercessions
let's pray
join with me
almighty God
father of all
mercies
we than
unworthy
servants
do give you
most humble
and hearty
thanks
for all your
goodness
and loving
kindness
to us
and to all
people
we bless you
for our
creation
preservation
and all the
blessings
of this
life
but above
all for
your
inestimable
love
in the
redemption
of the
world
by our
Lord
Jesus
Christ
for the
means
of grace
and for
the hope
of glory
and we
beseech you
give us
that due
sense
of all
your
mercies
that our
hearts
may be
unfaintedly
thankful
and that
we show
forth your
praise
not only
with our
lips
but in
our
lives
by giving
up ourselves
to your
service
and by
walking
before you
in holiness
and righteousness
all our
days
through
Jesus
Christ
our
Lord
to whom
with you
and the
Holy Spirit
be all
honor and
glory
world without
end
amen
father thank you
for the gospel
thank you for your word
thank you for science
thank you father for those in this room who you've blessed with fine minds for science
for mathematics for medicine for government for good public service for good business for art
thank you for
various vocations for various vocations to live in such a way that we are always thankful for jesus and can bear witness to him and all this we ask in the name of jesus and all god's people said amen
thank you so much for Ciao被
my