Welcome to Sterling. I'm Pastor Brian Wright, the pastor here. We're just so thrilled to have you all with us. Really praying and hoping that this weekend will be a time when all of you draw closer to Christ and learn better how to serve him in the world that we live in. and also learn to love each other better as brothers and sisters in Christ. So I hope that this weekend is a time of great growth for you and a blessing to you. It's a blessing to us to have you here. And we're looking forward to worshiping with you, with the whole congregation tomorrow morning. Just remain standing for just a moment. Let's pray for our time together today. Gracious Father in heaven, we praise you because you are glorious. You are our God and our king. And you are not just our creator, but also our redeemer. You are our hope. You are the source of all life and joy. And so we praise you. We pray that our time together this morning would bring great glory to you, that you would work in each of our hearts in just the way that we need through your word, that we would come to know you better and know better how to serve you in the world that you've put us in. And we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Go ahead and have a seat. All right, our topic today, topic of this retreat, is believers and the arts. Believers and the arts. Humans make art, and we are believers. How do those things go together? That's what I want you to grapple with this weekend. Art is a part of the human experience all through history. Humans make all kinds of art, enjoy all kinds of art. Humans are always engaged in the arts in one form or another. It's also all through the Bible, and it's all through our society today. Art is a part of the human experience, it's part of our lives. And we are people who believe in truth. And we believe specific truths. We believe the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints, as Jude calls it. The content, certain content of our faith, things that we believe about God, key truths about God, key truths about this world, key truths about ourselves, and there's truths about history, about what has already happened, and truths about what's going to happen in history. And we believe truths about right and wrong. And so again, the question is, how do those things go together? human beings being artistic, enjoying the arts, creating the arts, engaging with the arts, and we have these beliefs that shape who we are, that distinguish us from an unbelieving world. And I'm bringing these talks to you today and this topic to you today because there's a burden on my heart because of two sort of extremes of the ways that Christians often approach the arts and ways that I see happening, especially in our young people. Two different ways of approaching the arts that are concerning to me, at least. The first, on the one extreme, I see a lot of just free consumption and creation of art with zero attention to what is right before God. And that the world of the arts is something we just take it all in. We just consume exactly what the world is consuming. We engage with exactly what the world is engaging with. We listen to all the same things. We watch all the same things. And we're not really looking any different from the world in the way that we approach these things. And friends, in our world of AirPods and phone screens in the dark, there is a lot less accountability for you today for what you engage with in the arts. And so it's more important than ever that you have your head screwed on straight about these things, that you think about these things, that you engage thoughtfully with this world that has so many forms of art that are coming at you all the time, and that you think very carefully about these things. So on the one extreme, I see people just kind of just taking it all in, just unfiltered, just doing everything that their neighbors and friends are doing. But then on the other end of things, or the other extreme, I see people, Christians, treating the arts as the problem themselves. That the arts are the source of all the problems in people's, the problems in young people's lives. And then, because of that, becoming completely disengaged, and purposely disengaging with everything that is artistic. And it's true that there is so much sin that is under the name of art today, and so people look at that, and they cut it off completely, and they say, no, we're gonna live a life of logic, we're gonna live a life of statements of truth, and propositional truth, and we're gonna approach things only analytically, and we're not gonna engage with the arts at all, so that we don't become infected by all of these things that happen in the arts today. The arts are worldly, the arts are fleshly, so we're gonna keep away from them completely. And I hope, as we look at this topic today, I hope to show you that really neither of these approaches honors God's created purpose for the arts, created purpose for the human capacity to make art and to enjoy art. I hope that as we look at this topic here together that you will, on the one hand, you'll become more rooted in what we believe as Christians and really apply it to this area and really make choices to engage or not engage in particular ways to honor God, acting in a way that reflects our beliefs. But I also hope you'll see today that engaging with the arts is actually required for all believers. I'll show you what I mean here in a little bit. And that true belief, if we truly believe what the Bible teaches us about who God is and who we are and what this world is like, true belief will result in the best art, should result in the best art in human societies, if we're approaching things in the right way. That true belief should produce art that is fuller, that's more beautiful, that is more truthful art. So for this first lecture, we're gonna start off here by looking at two main topics to get us started. The first is the importance of the arts, and then we're gonna look at what we believe, a brief summary of what we believe. Again, those are kind of the two things we're trying to put together, but we're gonna introduce you to those two things in this first lecture. The importance of the arts, and then a brief summary of what we believe in the big picture about history and about who we are and how God has created us to be. So we're gonna look here at the importance of the arts first. And for talking about the importance of the arts, we probably need to define what art is. And we're going to be working with a really broad definition of art here. We're not going to be talking only about fine art or folk art or pop art or distinguishing what's art. We're not going to get into a big debate about what makes art art and what makes it not art. We're acting on the assumption here that there are things that we traditionally view as the arts. When you think of the arts, we think of music and drawing and painting and dance and sculpture and architecture. storytelling and creative writing, poetry, textiles and clothing, all kinds of things that we generally lump together as the arts, because the principles that we're going to be looking at today apply across the board here. And my goal is not to get too focused in on one particular area, but that you'll get general principles that you can apply in the ways that you are engaging in the arts already. But I think one of the best, very succinct definitions of art I've come across recently is actually in a young adult fiction book called Beneath the Swirling Sky by Carolyn Leiloglou. I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name, but it's a book. It has to do with paintings and stuff. But at one point, one of the characters says, art expresses beauty and truth. that art expresses beauty and truth. And I think that's a really succinct definition of what art does and what we do with art. And maybe to just flesh that out a little bit more, I would say that it's something that communicates beauty or truth, and or truth, through more than just a statement of fact. something that communicates beauty and or truth in more than just a statement of fact. So there are ways that we can communicate things just by verbally, words on a page, straightforward communication of a propositional truth. Arts are those things that communicate beauty and truth in a way beyond that or adding to that in a way that's not just a statement of fact. And so you can see that that covers a huge variety of things. And the question then is, are those arts important? Is that an important part of our lives? Is it an important part of human culture, human life? Well, if you look at the world around us today, our culture clearly thinks that art is important. Maybe only certain kinds of art, but people say that you vote with your wallet and you vote with your feet, right? So people spend the money on the things that are important to them, people go do the things that are important to them. And if arena concerts are any indication of what our culture thinks is important, Our culture thinks that art, at least that form of art, is important. I had friends in Pittsburgh that were frustrated by how quickly Taylor Swift shut down the city when she had her big concert in Pittsburgh. It just, it mobbed, the place was mobbed, right? And the cost of those tickets? I mean, our world thinks the arts are important, certain arts, some arts maybe not so much, think certain forms of art are important. Think about the music and film industry as a whole. industries as a whole. They are a massive part of our lives, a massive part of American life, a massive part of our economy. And when you realize that none of those things are actually necessary for bodily survival, you realize this is something that's very important to people. Our culture, the world around us thinks the arts are important. So at the very least, we need to understand what they're engaging with. We need to understand if we're going to reach the lost, they think this is important. The world around us thinks this is important. So there's some importance even just at that level, right? The world around us, our culture thinks that the arts are important. We need to understand these things if we're going to reach those people effectively. But I would also argue that the arts are more a part of your life than you might think. And this is where I'm talking to those of you who saw the title of the topic for this retreat and you kind of went, at least I get to go see my friends. I'll go, I'll hang out with some people. Arts, that's not my thing. I'm not really interested. I don't engage in the arts. I think the arts are kind of a waste of time. I'm not really doing these things. But I want to help you see that you are already engaging in things that are related to art in your daily life. If you ever listen to any music ever, you are engaging with the arts, or if you ever hum a tune yourself, or even if you enjoy the jingle in a commercial, you're engaging with the arts in a certain form. If you ever watch movies of any kind, if you watch any TV, if you even watch YouTube videos, or TikToks, or Reels, or anything like that, you're engaging with a form of art. If you ever read any books of any kind, if you ever enjoy listening to someone tell a story, you're engaging with the arts. If you choose your vehicle, Or maybe your dream vehicle that you're not yet able to buy at all based on what it looks like. If you would ever not buy that truck because of what color it is. you're engaging with the arts in one form or another. If you ever make any conscious choices about what you wear beyond just the utility or the function of those clothes for that day, you're already engaging with the arts. So I hope you see that the principles we're talking about here today apply to what you're already doing. And maybe you'll be encouraged to engage with the arts in new ways and in greater ways in your life. But I hope you see you're already in these things. You're already making decisions about these things. And we need to be thoughtful about those things. Um, God is concerned with every part of your life, including your interaction with what is artistic and what is, uh, what we consider the arts. And so you need to be thinking about these things. But beyond all that, beyond the fact that it's important to our world today, so we need to understand it for that reason, beyond the fact that you're already engaging with it, the arts are also all through the Bible. And that's where I want to take you here for a while to work through where we see the arts again and again and again in scripture and a great variety of different kinds of the arts in scripture. And so I'm going to be handing out a whole bunch of references here if you guys can be ready to read some of those out loud. So if you have a Bible handy, please, if you don't have a Bible handy, make it handy. And I'm going to try to do this fairly quickly. So I'm going to hand out a bunch of references here. And just please be ready to volunteer. OK. Colossians 3, 16. Colossians 3, 16 there. Okay. 1 Kings 7, 23 and 25. Simeon. Psalm 30, verse 11. here. Psalm 149, 2 and 3, right there. Exodus 26, verse 1. Back there, Ben. What did I just do? Exodus 26? Okay. Exodus 15, verse 20, over here. Then Ezekiel 16, 10 through 13. Ezekiel 16, 10 through 13. And Judges 9, 7 through 10. Judges 9, 7 through 10. And I'll repeat them when we get to them. So hopefully, does anybody want theirs? Well, we'll get there. As we get to each one, hopefully we'll be able to get to them. So what we're looking at here is to see what forms of the arts do we see appear in scripture. I'm going to start off by asking, what art form have all Christians been commanded to participate in? Singing, right? Colossians 3.16. Who has that one? Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and enlarging one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Okay, it says, No, it says by singing, right? We are supposed to sing. It's not that we don't teach each other in other ways. But every single one of you has been commanded by God to engage in this art form that's different from if you were just saying those words. In fact, in the Reformation, Ulrich Zwingli tried to stop all singing in the church, and he had the people in the congregation just read the Psalms back and forth to each other. That's not what God has commanded, right? He's commanded us to sing. So we all engage in this art of music and singing. OK, 1 King 7, 23 and 25. Who has that for us? It may seem a little odd here, but just 23 and 25, yes. He made a molten sea 10 cubits from the one brim to the other. It was round all about, and its height was 5 cubits, and a line of 30 cubits did pass it round about. Okay, so what's going on here? What's the context? What are they? What's happening here? First Kings 7. Anybody know? It's a basin in the temple, right? They're making a basin for the temple. This is when Solomon's building the temple there in 1 Kings 7. And it's not a purely functional basin, right? What's it sitting on? 12 oxen. I don't know if you've ever pictured this before. In the temple, this great basin of water that did have a function was sitting on sculptures. is sitting on sculptures of oxen. When you think of a sculpture of something like a cow in a place of worship, does that seem like a good idea? No, it sounds like the golden calf, right? We think of, no, we don't do that, right? And we'll get into questions of worship and what we do today in the new covenant. We're not there yet. But under the old covenant, God commanded for sculpture to be made. So these are sculptures. So for this art form, what we're looking at here is sculpture, right? And it had a function, certainly, but it was to communicate something. It was to show the power and the glory of God in his glorious a temple. So we have sculptures. Now, the problem comes when you start worshipping those things. We're going to get into that later. You see that in the bronze serpent that Moses made, it was a good thing to begin with, then they started worshipping it. They had to cut it into pieces. So the problem comes when they start worshipping those things. Okay, Psalm 30, verse 11. Who had that one? Psalm 30, verse 11. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing, so you have wished to protect me in clothing and in clothes of meaning, but in blindness. Okay, and Psalm 149, two and three. Okay, putting those two verses together, there's a few things in Psalm 149, but those two verses together, what art form do we see here? Dancing. Right? And I meant to say at the beginning of this, all of these references to art that we're going to see here are presented in a positive light. There's a lot of negative references to arts, things arts use wrongly in scripture. All of the ones we're going to look at here are presented in a positive light. The contrast of mourning, or the opposite of mourning here, is dancing. is moving your body in a joyful way. Um, and, and so that is something that is celebrated, that is affirmed. There's a lot of sinful things that happen associated with dance, and we'll get into that a little bit, but dancing is celebrated here as a good thing, as something that God has made us to do, and it's part of our rejoicing. Okay, Exodus 26, verse 1. Exodus 26, verse 1. Okay, what do we have going on here? What kind of art do we have here? Weaving, yep. Making fabric. What else? They weren't just supposed to weave it. What were they supposed to do? Embroidery, right? Some kind of a visual depiction of these cherubim, of angelic creatures, in this cloth. It wasn't just a purely functional curtain, right? It was meant to communicate. It was supposed to show God's beauty and glory through these arts that had been put to use here. And at this point, I want to point out that in Exodus 31, We're told that this artistic work for the tabernacle was actually empowered by the Holy Spirit himself. Listen to this, Exodus 31, 1 through 6. Exodus 31, 1 through 6. The Lord said to Moses, see, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood to work in every craft. And behold, I have appointed with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. Bezalel and Aholiab were empowered by the Holy Spirit for craftsmanship, to be able to make these things. Now, again, this is the Old Covenant. There's a particular function of things with the temple and tabernacle that we don't do today in the same exact way. But God is endorsing and encouraging and empowering the use of artistic gifts here for his own glory. So someday, if you want your kids to be great artists, you can name them Bezalel or Aholiab. But it's, it's, this is something the Lord is approving and is encouraging. It was part of, part of, an important part of the worship of God's people at the time. So we see weaving and embroidery there. Then, we're not going to look at all of this, but if you look at 1 Kings 6, before we get to the basin and the altar and all those things, 1 Kings 6 has all these descriptions of the temple, and how it was built, and the different chambers, and how big they were, and all the different ways that the building was put together, and it's not pure function. There's a glory to it. There's a beauty in architecture there. So we see the art of architecture in 1 Kings 6, that God's great attention to detail and how this building is put together to communicate about his glory and about his beauty to his people at the time. So we see architecture there. What about Exodus 15, verse 20? Then Mary of the prophetess, sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women who went about after her with tambourine OK, so we've already talked about dancing, but what else is involved here? Music, particularly what? How are they making the music? With a tambourine. Now, I will admit, I am not a big fan of tambourine. I think tambourine muddies most songs. But anyway, there's a time and place for it. But apparently, this was a good time and place for it, right? And what were they doing? They were celebrating a victory. This is not corporate worship. This is not service of worship. This is just celebration. And somebody had taken the time to make this thing that had the little rattly parts on it to make this sound that is part of celebrating, right? It's part of making a beautiful noise to celebrate a great national deliverance for Israel when they crossed the Red Sea. And so we see instrumental worship there. You see, not worship, sorry. You see instrumental music. We'll talk about instruments here in a bit. We see instrumental music there as a way of celebrating, and something that God has given his people to help us rejoice. Certainly see all kinds of instruments mentioned in Psalm 150, which is not, again, we'll get into the regulative principle later on. But instruments are something that God has designed us to be able to make, and people have always made throughout history, and they're a part of expressing our joy and enjoying beautiful things. Okay, Ezekiel 16, 10 through 13. Now hang on before you read it. Somebody have that one ready? Okay, all right, before we read it, Ezekiel 16, this is a passage we don't read very often. This is a metaphor for God and his care for his people of Israel. And he describes Israel as this abandoned infant that he finds and he cares for her. And then when she grows up, then he clothes her. And listen to the description of how he clothes her in Exodus 16, 10 through 13. And I clothed you also with embroidered cloth, and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in a fine linen, and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments, and with bracelets on your wrists, and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring through your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a little crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was a fine linen, and silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful, but the biggest of the royal. Okay, what do we have described here? What kind of arts do we have involved here? Jewelry? Fashion in general, right? Clothing. I mean, you've got different types of fabric. You've got silk. You've got all these different things like that. You've also got fine food here. We'll maybe get into that at this point. But you have all of these adornments, really. These aren't just purely functional articles of clothing. And this is not just an Old Testament idea. How is the New Jerusalem described? And the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven in Revelation 21. As a bride adorned for her husband. Now, in both of these cases, that's metaphorical, right? It's metaphorical of the spiritual adornment of God's people, and certainly in the New Testament, we're told that that outward adornment's not supposed to be our primary adornment, right? It's supposed to be the inner person, right? We're supposed to be mostly... most importantly concerned with our spiritual selves and our adornment that way. But the concept that a bride should be adorned for her husband or that human adornment is not an entirely pagan thing is endorsed both here in Ezekiel and in Revelation 21. That there's this kind of, there's jewelry, there's different textiles, those kinds of things are a part of good human life that God has created. Okay, what about, I guess we're not gonna read this, but who could who can tell me what's really different about Psalm 119 from the other psalms? Not all the other psalms. What makes 119 special? It's an acrostic. What is an acrostic? Anybody tell me what an acrostic is? Right. Each line, each Each section, every line begins with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and it works its way through the Hebrew alphabet. So there's 22 sections because there's 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And that means that if it was in English, if we were doing this in English, the first section of Psalm 119, every line would start with A. Second section, every line would start with B. Third section, every line would start with C. This isn't the only psalm that does this. The whole book of Lamentations, almost the whole book of Lamentations is structured this way. And so there's an art of poetry going on here. Obviously, there's a lot of poetry in scripture beyond that. I mean, most of the prophets is written in poetry. The whole of the Psalms, most of Proverbs is written in a poetic form. But there's these even really particular poetic forms, like acrostics, that actually really shape the way that the word is presented. I will say reading the Hebrew in Psalm 119 is a real challenge because they have to use, the author has to use all kinds of weird words to make it work. The acrostic shaped the words that he chose to use to write that psalm and he used words that you wouldn't normally use and weird order of words and things like that to have this poetic effect. And so this poetry that even uses complicated and even limiting forms is something that we see scripture doing. We see prophecy all through the Bible. Okay, Judges 9. What did I say? Judges 9, 7 through 10. Again, a little bit of an odd case here, but you'll understand here in a moment. Judges 9, 7 through 10. Okay, and the story goes on from there. What's going on here in this story? What kind of a story is this? What does he do to make his point? What'd you say? A metaphor, right? Who's talking in this story? Trees. Do trees talk? No. Do trees have kings? No, right? This is fiction, right? This is imaginative fiction. This is unrealistic fiction. You might even call it a fantasy story to make a point, obviously. He's making a spiritual point here. But trees don't talk. We're not limited in God-honoring art. We're not limited to what is realistic. that we have the opportunity, because we believe, we understand reality because of what the word has told us, we know what's real, we are free to produce all kinds of imaginative things that don't really, aren't really the way the world is, trees don't really talk or have kings, because we know what reality is. We don't have to worry about blending the two because we know, we know what's real, we know what isn't, and so we can produce these things to make a point and to communicate something well. And so there's this, this is just an example of that kind of imaginative storytelling. We could go on here, we could go on and there's other art forms mentioned in scripture, but I hope you're seeing that this human capacity to produce these artistic things and to engage with them is something that God has endorsed and has used and blessed all through the history of his people. It's all through the Bible. And so even if you are not at all inclined to the arts, If you are analytical, give me the math on the sheet. Let me do this in a very straightforward way with nothing to do with the arts. You still have to know something about the arts if you're going to read your Bible. If you're gonna understand your Bible, if you're gonna understand the poetry in Scripture, if you're gonna understand what's going on in the tabernacle and all these kinds of things, you have to know something about these arts. More than that, though, I hope you see that these arts are presented as good and beneficial in their proper setting even today. That these are good parts of how God has created us to be. Now, the danger here is, as Scripture also teaches us, there are lots of abuses of the arts. And I don't think we need to take a long time to help to see that things that are artistically made have so often been a stumbling block to people. People bow down to them, people worship them, people become too consumed with these things. They make something beautiful and then it's so beautiful, they see so much of God's glory in it, they worship the creature instead of the creator. And so there are these negative examples. You see, for example, the adulterous woman in Proverbs using adornment and beauty as a way to trap the fool into sin, right? These things can be used horribly, right? They can be used in ways that are not honoring to God in a great way, but there is a God-glorifying way to engage in the arts. And they've been an ever-present part of the human experience that reflects God's creativity, and how he's made us to reflect who he is. So, as I hope you're seeing, this is not a question of whether you should engage in the arts. The question is, since you are already engaging in the arts, in one form or another, how can you do it in a way that really glorifies God? Now, I want to, before we really go any farther with this discussion of the arts, I want to give a caveat here, that if you read books on Christianity and art, especially by artists themselves, and I should say up front here, I love the arts, I love music in particular, but it's not my full-time gig, it's not, there are people who know way more about these things than I do, and I hope you'll engage with people who have way more expertise than I do on these things. But when you read books written by Christian artists, Often it seems like they talk as if making art is the most important thing that Christians do. And that this is the best possible thing you could do with your life. And sometimes we're given the impression that artists are the most perceptive people there are. And that we should always listen to artists first and foremost. And sometimes art is presented in a way that it is the way that we transform society. If we would engage in the arts well, that's what will transform society, that's what will change people's lives. And so I want to give a caveat here to say, the preaching of the gospel happens through the speaking of the gospel. Yes, there are other ways that we present who God is and who we are and what sin is and what redemption is and those kinds of things, but Romans 10, 17 tells us, Romans 10, 17, that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Friends, there is no full preaching of the gospel without using words. You have to use words to share the gospel. Faith comes by hearing. And so I'm not, as we look at these things today, I'm not making art the primary task of Christians in the world. I'm not saying that art is gonna be the thing that's gonna transform culture, transform society. It's a piece of what we do as Christians. It is a, it can be a wonderful God-honoring thing to put your whole life into, if you're given that opportunity. But it is one of many, many God-honoring callings. And so, I'm not trying to, I want to be careful not to go too far into, swing too far into saying that, that art has greater importance than it really does within the full scope of honoring God as Christians. So if that is the case, if we see that scripture has art all through it, that if we're going to make art and enjoy art in a God-honoring way, and we're going to do it as believers, then we need to make sure that we know what we believe. So we've looked here at the importance of the arts. and I hope you see the arts are important, but my point this weekend in particular is gonna be to try to convince you that to really approach the arts in a God-honoring way, you need to know clearly God's big story. what I'm going to call God's big story, as we look at this here today. This overarching story of redemption. I think that knowing God's overarching story of redemption and believing what the Bible has told us about that story of redemption is key to engaging the arts well. And so what I'm going to do is take our time in the rest of this lecture to give you a summary of what we believe about God's big story. And try to get a framework in your mind that's then going to be our springboard for the next two lectures. So what I'd like to do is have you turn to 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter chapter 3. 2 Peter 3, we're going to read, I'll read verses 1 through 10 aloud here. And I want you to pay attention to what distinguishes Believers from unbelievers in this passage. What is it that differentiates those who truly believe here and those who don't? And what kinds of things make the difference in what they believe? 2 Peter 3, 1 through 10. This is the Word of God. This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. For they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Here in 2 Peter 3, we're given a description of these scoffers. What are these scoffers saying? If you could paraphrase what they've said here. Back in verses, verse 4. Sorry, say it again. When is he coming? Right. When is he coming? And do they think he's coming? No. No, right? They're saying, look, he hasn't come yet. He's probably not coming at all. And we all say that sometimes, you're waiting for your friend and he doesn't show up for long enough, she doesn't show up for long enough, you're like, he's probably not coming. Right? That's how they were approaching Christ's return. They said, look, it's been a while. Right? And, and this is written, this is written in the first hundred years after, or the first 50 years after Jesus went back to heaven. And here we are hundreds and hundreds of years after that. But they're saying, hey, he hasn't come back yet, he's probably not coming back. Right? But what does Peter say that they're doing here? What are they deliberately doing? They willfully forget. Right? And look at the kinds of things that they're deliberately overlooking, willfully forgetting. It's that the world was made by God, in a particular way, by his word. Right? They're also denying the flood. This is an interesting point that I don't think we talk about very often. They, they, we're told that the unbelieving world will deliberately suppress the truth of the flood in particular, which is interesting. We'll get into a whole other discussion about paleontology and all that with that. But they deliberately overlook the reality that, that there are world-changing events that have happened. Right? They say everything's always been the way that it is right now, everything's always going to be the way that, everything always will be the way that it is now. You should not expect Jesus to come back, you should not expect any world-changing events. And Peter's saying, no, they deliberately overlook that there already was a great judgment that killed everyone in the world except for one family. That that world, he even talks about that world being destroyed by water, and then what's the parallel? It was destroyed by water back then, what's gonna happen? It's gonna be destroyed by fire, right? It's stored up for fire, and that's another truth that the unbelieving world deliberately suppresses. the idea that this world is going to end. This world is going to be destroyed in a moment, not just some slow grinding heat death, as the atheists talk about it, as the world just sort of disintegrates, the universe disintegrates. No, there's going to be a final and a decisive destruction in a moment. This world is going to end. And that's something that the unbelieving world denies and says, no, these things are not going to happen. And so, what are we supposed to do instead of believing along with the scoffers? At the beginning of what he told them here, what are we supposed to do in verse 2? Remember the predictions of the prophets and the apostles. Remember what we've been told about what's coming. Yes, the future is a closed book to us as human beings in our own limitations, but we're not limited to what we can find out as humans because God himself has sent his prophets and sent his apostles to give us his word that tell us things about the future. Things that we could not know if he had not told us, but he has told us. We know things, and so what we need to do is remember these truths about the past and about the future. Things about creation, really, if we're gonna look different from the scoffers, if we're gonna be different from the unbelieving world, we need to believe the truths God has told us about how the world was made, why the world is the way that it is today, whether there's any hope for us, and what is going to happen to this world in the end. Those are the kinds of things that the world suppresses. That how this world was made, why it is the way it is today, what's going to happen, or sorry, whether we have any hope, and what's going to happen to this world. And so as we try to think about a summary of what we believe, there are lots of good summaries out there, right? You can think of the great creeds. of the church that summarize truths about God that he's told us and about his plan of salvation. You could think of our confession and our catechism because catechisms that go into more detail. But what I want to present to you today is a summary of God's story of redemption in four parts that I think is really helpful. It's something that's talked about a lot these days, and I have not been able to track down who first expressed the story of redemption in this way. Everybody I find says, well, Christians often summarize in this way, and I can't find the original source of this. But it's the idea of thinking of history in four parts as creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. As I said, this is going to be our framework for the next two lectures. We're going to look at two of these in each of the next two lectures. But what I want to do here is to make sure that you all know what these terms mean and understand the overall flow of God's plan for redemption, of God's big story, the way that he has shaped history to be. Some of it's in the past, some of it's going on right now, and some of it we're looking forward to happening later. So first, we want to look at creation. What do we see in creation? So Genesis 1.1, what does it say? In the beginning what? God created the heavens. Before you even get to the word created, in the beginning God. In the beginning, God. We don't have an origin story for God. God has always been there. God doesn't have any, there's no explanation for where God came from, because he's always been there. There was a time, well it wasn't even time, but there was when God was, and there was nothing else, right? God has always existed, he's self-existent, he's all-powerful, he's all-knowing, all those things. He is the supreme God, and then he created. How did he create? by the word of his power, right? He spoke things into existence. He didn't create them out of other substance. He did some shaping, but he didn't create things out of something that already existed, right? Things that were seen were not created out of things that didn't exist, right? He created things by the word of his power out of nothing. He just called them into being. And when he created this world, what do we see? We see order, right? How did the dry land appear? What does it say? He gathered the waters, right? And the scripture talks about this in several places. He says, water, you stay here. Land, you're going to be right there. He said, water, you can go to here, and you can't go any further. He creates order. It's not just chaos. He creates order with the seas here and the land there. He also creates incredible diversity in this creation. Think about all the animals. Think about how many times the word kinds is used in the creation narrative, right? According to their kinds, according to their kinds, right? All these different kinds of creatures, all the birds and fish and animals with great diversity, all the different kinds of fruit in the garden. He didn't just give Adam and Eve some kind of protein carb pastes that didn't taste like anything. He created all these different fruits with all these different flavors, all these different types of trees. There's great diversity and beauty in that creation. And then we see humanity singled out in particular ways. How is humanity singled out in creation? We're made in the image of God, right? Male and female, he created them. You see that diversity again in male and female. But both in the image of God, right? We're made in the image of God. What about how humanity was made? How is how humans were made different from other things that were made? Right. He called the animals into existence, but then he took the earth and he sculpted, right? He created, he made Adam. And then there's this beautiful picture. He breathed into Adam's nostrils, right? I mean, it's really close language there. It's the idea of he's created Adam in such a way that when Adam first came into existence, first opened his eyes, he was face-to-face with God. Right? What an amazing thing, right? Created in this really special relationship with God. And then what are Adam and Eve told to do? Be fruitful, multiply, what else? Subdue the earth and fill it, right? They have a job to do. And then what does Adam put in the garden to do? Take care of the garden. Now, when you don't have any thorns and thistles yet, I'm not sure what taking care of the garden looks like exactly. But in some sense, he was supposed to cultivate. He was supposed to take care of the garden. Humanity has a particular role to play in subduing this creation and filling it and ruling over it. as God's particular representatives, showing God's glory in a particular way that humanity has been given special gifts to reflect God's glory in a way that's particular to humanity that's not true of other parts of creation. We're going to get into this here more in a little bit. So he makes all—oh, and then also you see in Adam and Eve's— you see Adam and Eve with a perfect relationship before sin, right? Adam saying, this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, and they were naked and unashamed, right? It's a perfect relationship. There's no sin. There's no conflict there between Adam and Eve at this point. And there's a perfect relationship with God as well, as we've talked about already. There's no shame here. And at the end of all this, when God's created all these things, what does he say? He looks at his creation, and what does he say? It's very good. This world was created very good. If there's anything in this world that is not good today, it is not the way this world was created. That is not the way our culture looks at things. That is a key difference. We believe anything in this world that is not good was not there when it was first created. It's come through corruption, it's come through sin, right? We believe this creation was made very good. This world was made good, that's a really key point. Okay, but it didn't stay that way, right? What happened? The fall, right? So we've had creation, but then the fall happened. Adam and Eve sinned. Adam, as our representative, as our federal head, ate the fruit and sinned. And what happens immediately? And again, I hope this is review for a lot of you. If it's not, I'm really glad you're getting it now. But if it feels a little bit like review, hang in there with me, because this is important. And it'll come, become more important later on. What happened immediately after they ate the fruit? They were ashamed. There was no shame before. Now there's shame. Right? They have to cover themselves. Because of sin, we have to wear clothes. We have to cover ourselves. Right? What else? What else happens? They hid from God, right? That's staggering. When you think about Adam created to see God face to face, and he sins, and the first thing he does is run and hide from God. What about the relationship between Adam and Eve? They blame each other, right? Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh turns into the woman you gave me, right? There's this corruption of relationships with God and relationships with each other. It's heartbreaking. And then God pronounces a curse on, a curse on them for sin. What are some of the aspects of that curse? Death, that's the primary aspect of the curse, right? They would not have died. Romans 5, 12 says that, you know, death came into the world through sin, and, and now we all die because all sin, right? There was no death before the fall. Death was not part of the way this world was created. It's not part of the way you were created, right? This came in through the fall. What else in the, in the curse? It's not just that we die. Thorns and thistles, right? Weeds and all kinds of natural disasters. That's just shorthand for all the things about this world that make the world unfriendly to us. Right? Predators. Animals becoming predators. Right? All kinds of things that are dangerous for us. Natural disasters. Diseases. Those things are not the way this world was created to be. What else? What else is in the curse for sin? Pain and childbirth, right? I remember in our birthing class, when Lisa and I were getting ready for our first child to arrive, they started off the class with all this beautiful talk about how your body's made for this, and this is wonderful, and women are strong, and it's great. All things are true. It's great. And they said, oh, this is beautiful. Your body can do this. And then the very next moment, they said, let's talk about pain management, right? I mean, that's the reality of it, right? I mean, we can't get around the fact that that is part of God's curse. on this world because of our sin. What else? Right. I mean, child rearing has included that, right? The, the pains and difficulties that come along with, with raising children, right? What about, so you also see Adam and Eve's relationship talked about there, right? Her desire will be for him or will be desire to be over him, and he will rule over her. And there's a domineering that comes into the relationship there. And there's a conflict over authority, a conflict over power there, a power struggle within marriage. We also see the thorns and thistles related to the fact that Adam's gonna have to sweat and toil to get his food, right? Work is a pain, right? Don't be surprised when your job is not fun a lot of the time, right? That's part of the curse for sin. And then again, ultimately, death is that greatest part of the curse, that we would not have died if we had not eaten the fruit. of those great buts in scripture, that but God did not leave us that way, right? That God showed us mercy. And this redemption that we're talking about here begins immediately after the fall. Okay, sometimes people think of this like, okay, creation But that's not how it works How did how did redemption begin the moment after the fall All right, the first part of the curse that's pronounced is pronounced on the serpent, right? He tells me you have to crawl on your belly, you have to eat the dust, and then he says, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and your seed and her seed and he, singular, he will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. And we're so used to that, that promise, that we forget just how striking that is. Adam and Eve had sided with the serpent. They had taken sides with the serpent. And God says, nope, I'm taking them back. And there's going to be an enmity between you, and there's a Savior coming. And the whole rest of human history, until the coming of Jesus, was God preparing things for Jesus to come at just the right time to save people like us, sinners like us, and not leave us in the sin and the curse that we had created for ourselves. Right? And all of history is focused on that moment of redemption of the cross of Jesus Christ. that God sent his son to save sinners like you and me. And that means that today, right now, we are in this time of redemption. We haven't gotten to the consummation yet. We're going to talk about that here in a moment. We are in the time of redemption right now. Today is the day of salvation, as 2 Corinthians 6 says. Today is the day of salvation. Isaiah 55, six and seven says, seek the Lord while he may be found. You hear the time aspect of that? Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord. We've gone away from him in the fall. Return to the Lord so that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Friends, the reason this world continues is because God isn't done saving people yet. You ever thought about it that way? The reason that he doesn't just go ahead and finish this world and make the new creation is because he's not done saving people yet. Today is that day of salvation. And so before we go any further today, before we talk about anything else about arts or anything like that, we need to pause here to say that if you don't believe this, if you don't trust in Jesus already, if you have not confessed your sin to him, if you don't realize that you are under God's judgment for your sin, if you have not turned to Jesus Christ for salvation, now is the day of salvation. And if you don't, if you don't believe these things, the rest of what we're gonna talk about today doesn't matter. We could, we could talk about the arts, we could talk about making beautiful things, we could talk about engaging with things, and creativity, and all these things that our world loves to talk about, but if you don't believe this, stop and consider this, please, today. hear the good news that God did not leave us to die and to suffer for our sin. He came to die himself. He took on a human nature, and he died on the cross for sinners like you and me, and he is making time right now. The reason that Jesus has not busted through this ceiling yet is because you have an opportunity right now. Today is the day of salvation, and again, the rest of what we're going to talk about today doesn't matter if you do not believe these things. Now is the time. Now is when redemption is offered to you. because there is a day coming that we call the consummation. Now this is a word we don't use as often. Sometimes you'll hear it called restoration or you'll hear it called the new creation. I think consummation's a good term for this because it's the idea of everything coming together the way it's supposed to. It's the fulfillment, it's the everything coming to where it's supposed to be. And so that's why the consummation is what happens at the return of Christ. The idea here is Jesus is coming back, and what's going to happen to this world? We already talked about this a little bit. What's going to happen to this world? Burned with fire, right? This world that we see will be destroyed, but not completely obliterated, right? It's gonna be wiped clean by fire, and there will be a new heavens and new earth. And what we see in Revelation is that in that new heavens and new earth, heaven and earth come together. It's a really beautiful thing. That where there was ripped apart, you had that fellowship with God ripped apart by the fall, you see heaven and earth brought together. God dwelling with us, and us with him, right? That's what's gonna happen. What about us? What's gonna happen to people when Jesus comes back? Right, some will be glorified, some will be judged, right? What about people who have already died? What'd you say? Start walking, right? The graves are gonna be opened. There will be a resurrection. This is gonna be important. We're gonna come back to this later. There's gonna be a resurrection. You will not spend eternity as a disembodied spirit. When you get to heaven, if you die in this life, your spirit goes to heaven. You're not done yet. Right? That's not how you're going to spend, you're going to be, you're still looking forward at that point to the resurrection. Doesn't mean that heaven's going to have any bad aspect to it, but you're not going to be bodily yet. And you will be for all eternity. You will have a body, whether you're in heaven or in hell, you will have a body. You will be raised. We're going to talk about that some more. If you want to look into that more, look at 1 Corinthians 15. Also in that day, when Jesus comes back, there's going to be justice for everything that has ever been done in the world. We'll talk about this some more as well. There's gonna be justice for everything that's ever been done in the world at that point. Friends, this is the story that we believe. This is God's big story for history. This is the greatest story ever told. This is the story. And I use that word story not because people talk about telling stories. This is true, obviously. The true story that is the greatest drama in all human history. This is God's story for saving his people. And a lot of this, we couldn't know if God had not told us. We couldn't know how this world had been created if we just looked at this creation. We would get it wrong, like the world does. Right? I couldn't know that a man named Jesus 2,000 years ago died on a cross for my sins if somebody didn't tell me. We needed that revealed to us by God through his prophets and apostles, and we definitely couldn't know that this world was going to be destroyed in a moment, right? Unless God had told us. And this is what distinguishes us from the unbelieving world. We believe these things, and they do not, and it radically shapes how you approach your life. And what we're gonna look at in the next two lectures is it radically shapes the way that you approach the arts in particular. We are just about out of time, but are there any questions at this point? Okay, we are gonna close by singing Psalm 19.