A number of months in the past, the principle drainage line from our home backed up — an disagreeable expertise for any home-owner. One of many worst, actually. The foundation of our disagreeable downside was, it seems, a root — a tree root (possible lots of them). So, we known as somebody with in depth expertise with such unpleasantries: Larry.
Larry is every thing you may anticipate from a person who’s spent thirty-plus years coping with owners’ nightmares. He clears drains with an awfully heavy machine that he constructed himself utilizing spare elements. It appeared like one thing out of a Ghostbusters film and weighed about as a lot as our Honda Odyssey. As I helped him carry the minivan down our entrance stairs, he advised me about his farm outdoors of city. He was particularly excited in regards to the poultry barn. “Oh, you’ve got chickens?” I requested. “No, pheasants. I increase pheasants.” Yearly, he went on to elucidate, Larry buys 300 pheasant eggs and incubates them till they hatch. As soon as the birds hatch, he cares for the birds for six to eight weeks (with as a lot watermelon as he can afford). “Oh they love watermelon. That’s a particular deal with on Sundays. . . . They go loopy for watermelon.”
Larry goes on to inform me that on common half — half — of the 300 pheasants die by the top of eight weeks. “So, what do you do with the remainder? Do you promote them?” “No, no, I allow them to go within the wild.” “Oh, so do you hunt?” “No, no, I don’t hunt ’em.” “So why do you do it?” [Long pause. . . . He looks like he’s never had to answer that question before, like he’d never really had to have a good reason to incubate hundreds of pheasant eggs each year.] Not sure, he lastly mumbled, “I assume it’s simply my approach of giving again . . .” Then he smiled, “Man, you must see ’em struggle over that watermelon.”
As I helped Larry load his machine again into his truck and watched him drive off down our avenue, I used to be left with one thing of a haunting query: Does something God has made make me really feel like he feels about these birds?
Of all of the individuals on the planet, lovers of God must be probably the most captivated by what he’s made — shouldn’t we? And but, too usually, easy guys like Larry see and really feel excess of we do (greater than I do, anyway). And his recent watermelon and heat smile are only a faint whisper of how God feels about pheasants. The actual query earlier than us this morning is, Does something God has made make us really feel like God feels about all of it? That’s the place I wish to go and what I wish to attempt to awaken in our time collectively in Psalm 104.
Do You Nonetheless Marvel?
Do your prayers ever sound just like the 35 verses of Psalm 104? I don’t imply the size, or the poetry, and even the mountains, the streams, and the rock badgers, however do you ever cease, decelerate, and marvel at one thing God has made and bless him for it? Does creation nonetheless arrest your consideration and lead you to worship?
I say nonetheless as a result of I’ve three children underneath seven, and also you don’t must persuade individuals underneath seven to marvel at what God’s made. Each rock is a treasured rock, a rock value conserving, defending, and displaying. Each animal — bunnies, deer, racoons, turtles — could as nicely be a unicorn. Each bug is an all-hands-on-deck disaster. Youngsters’s eyes are smaller than our eyes, however virtually at all times wider too. They see issues we’ve forgotten learn how to see.
Effectively, I wish to see extra of what they see, extra of what God sees, and for that, I believe Psalm 104 is a good park to stroll by way of. As we do, I wish to cease briefly at 4 nice views alongside the best way: First, God creates. Second, God delights. Third, we delight. And eventually, we create. God creates. God delights. We delight. And we create.
God Creates
So, first, God creates. It’s fascinating to check Psalm 104 with the psalms that come instantly earlier than it and after it. All three psalms got down to do basically the identical factor: awaken Godward awe and pleasure and worship.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. (Psalm 103:1)
Bless the Lord, O my soul. (Psalm 104:1)
Oh give because of the Lord. (Psalm 105:1)
We see the identical objective in all three, however they pursue that awe and pleasure and worship in three noticeably other ways. Psalm 103 focuses on the glories of salvation: He forgives your iniquity. He heals your ailments. He redeems your life from the pit. Neglect not all his advantages.
He doesn’t cope with us in accordance with our sins,
nor repay us in accordance with our iniquities.
For as excessive because the heavens are above the earth,
so nice is his steadfast love towards those that concern him;
so far as the east is from the west,
to date does he take away our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:10–12)
Psalm 103 revels within the rescue, within the pardon, within the “the steadfast love of the Lord . . . from eternal to eternal” (Psalm 103:17).
Psalm 105 pursues that very same soul-awakening awe and pleasure and worship from a unique angle. Once more, identical objective: “Glory in his holy identify; let the hearts of those that search the Lord rejoice!” (Psalm 105:3). However the place’s the main target this time? “Keep in mind the wondrous works that he has finished. his miracles, and the judgments he uttered” (Psalm 105:5). The selecting of Abraham. The land he gave to Jacob. The liberating of Joseph from jail. The sending of Moses. The humbling of Egypt. The psalmist needs our hearts to hunt and rejoice in God, and so he does a historical past lesson; he relives moments when God’s hand broke in to save lots of and prosper his individuals. He traces God’s windfall.
Psalm 104 pursues the identical awe and pleasure and worship — “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” — but it surely sits beside yet one more window (of the three, perhaps a extra uncared for window in our circles). When the psalmist sees the disconnect between what he believes about God and how he feels about God, when he needs to stir the coals of his love for God into flame, he doesn’t rehearse God’s mercy and forgiveness once more, and he doesn’t run again to all the various occasions God had rescued them. No, this time he lets his thoughts wander over hills and thru valleys. He climbs mountains and wades into oceans. Creation was his chosen weapon towards temptation. Creation was his rallying level again to actuality.
Nature or Creation?
I say creation with deep conviction and function, as a result of it’s, all of it in all places, conceived and carried out by an actual, divine creativeness. As T.M. Moore writes in Think about the Lilies,
One of many central teachings of Scripture is that the pure world is by no means pure. It’s the creation of a supernatural God. What we routinely name “nature” is in actual fact “creation.” (100)
Nothing we encounter is purposeless, or gloryless, or actually “pure.” We could discover the aim and glory extra within the grander points of creation, like oceans, lions, or mountains, however as Scripture teaches, even birds and lilies are saying one thing profound about God. Psalm 104 needs us to see and really feel this all through:
- He stretched out the heavens.
- He stacked the mountains and carved out the valleys.
- He drew the shores of the oceans.
- He taught the moon the place to face in spring and winter.
- He cooks for the birds, badgers, goats, and lions.
The psalmist is pointing in each course, highlighting as a lot as he can recall to mind — “Have a look at that! Have a look at that! And that and that and that!” — however actually he’s saying repeatedly, “Have a look at him.” He did that. He did that. Oh and he did that too. Isn’t he gorgeous? Isn’t he terrifying? Isn’t he beautiful? “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In knowledge have you made all of them; the earth is stuffed with your creatures” (Psalm 104:24).
This God-centeredness, the glory of this Creator, crescendos in verses 27–29:
These all look to you,
to present them their meals in due season.
Whenever you give it to them, they collect it up;
while you open your hand, they’re full of good issues.
Whenever you cover your face, they’re dismayed;
while you take away their breath, they die
and return to their mud.
Whenever you. . . . Whenever you. . . . Whenever you. . . . And by no means in any other case. He upholds the universe by the phrase of his energy. All of them, nice and small, land and sea, sit and anticipate him. They exist when and the way and the place he chooses. No creature is under him; no element escapes him. Each mouth bows earlier than his cosmic farmers market.
Your Corners of Creation
All issues are actually from him, by way of him, and for him (Romans 11:36). Creation is preaching the meticulous consideration, energy, creativity, and generosity of God. So will we hear it anymore? Can we commonly cease and look lengthy sufficient to pay attention — or are we slumped within the again rows, barely paying consideration, slowly nodding off?
And keep in mind, the psalmist didn’t have Netflix or Nationwide Geographic. He didn’t have Google or YouTube. He couldn’t plan a visit to the Pacific Ocean or the Rocky Mountains and even the native zoo. No, he might see so far as he might stroll (after which solely by way of the tales of others). He needed to take advantage of no matter was outdoors his entrance door. So don’t hear “creation” and first consider some grand journey someplace distant or by way of a display screen; consider no matter’s rising in your entrance yard (the belongings you wish to develop and the belongings you don’t). Don’t first consider uncommon and unique animals; consider the moles or squirrels which can be ruining no matter you wish to develop in your entrance yard. Sure, he mentions lions and Leviathan, however he additionally mentions birds and grass and evening skies. By all means, make the most of the entire methods we will see extra in the present day, however don’t miss the odd, breathtaking glimpses in your individual little corners of creation.
The God we worship is a inventive and creating God. We’re actually surrounded with the work of his arms. Nothing anyplace is untouched by his knowledge and creativity, by his brush. As a result of he needs us to see and savor him, he not solely speaks; he additionally creates — and he speaks by way of his creating. So, first, God creates. The second cease, now, is God delights.
God Delights
As we maintain strolling by way of the park of Psalm 104, we see the hand of God repeatedly — constructing, intervening, producing, feeding, sustaining — creating. All the things there’s, every thing we see, every thing we all know, our God has made. Bless the Lord, O my soul.
This isn’t a convention, nevertheless, in regards to the energy and creativity and knowledge of God. We wish to know what makes the comfortable God comfortable. And in Psalm 104, we not solely see the robust arms of God; we additionally get a glimpse of his smile.
Could the glory of the Lord endure eternally; could the Lord rejoice in his works. (Psalm 104:31)
Not, “Could the glory of the Lord endure eternally; could we rejoice in his works.” No, “Could he rejoice in his works.” He’s not simply placing on a present that just a few nature-loving individuals may take pleasure in. No, he loves excessive mountains and winding valleys; he loves full moons and good sunsets; he loves badgers, storks, and wild donkeys. The God of the universe genuinely enjoys the universe he’s made — the one we get to stay in day by day.
This shouldn’t shock us. It ought to be a well-known melody from the very first chapter within the Bible. Genesis 1:3–4: “And God mentioned, ‘Let there be mild,’ and there was mild. And God noticed that the sunshine was . . . good.” We’re so used to listening to that phrase, we would move proper over it. Proper there, although, within the very first verses of the Bible is the primary trace — no, the loud, repeated refrain (“good . . . good . . . good . . . good”) — that this world was not made to be a purposeful place to stay and lift a household. No, God meant for the place he made to be lovely, awe-inspiring, worshipful — in a phrase, good.
“God made a world that even God might admire.”
Night time and day weren’t simply wanted, however good. Mountains and oceans weren’t simply monumental, however good. The bushes, flowers, and timber weren’t simply fertile and productive, however good. The birds and fish and beasts of the sector had been all intentional, distinctive, and fascinating in their very own methods. They had been good. In different phrases, God made a world that even God might admire. How unusual and tragic, then, that our eyes so usually develop dim with all of it.
God’s Pleasure in God
God not solely makes; he delights in what he makes. He admires his creation. He steps off the stage, because it had been, to absorb and savor what he’s finished — the tales he’s conceived, the lighting he’s staged, the flooring he’s laid, the surroundings he’s constructed, the characters he’s developed, the colours and textures he’s woven collectively, the melodies he’s written underneath all of it. And why is all of it so good in his eyes? As a result of in all places he seems to be, he sees one thing of himself, his glory. The pleasure of God in creation is the pleasure of God in God.
Derek Kidner sees this within the first verses of the psalm — “overlaying himself with mild, stretching out the heavens, laying his chambers on the waters, making the clouds his chariot.” Kidner writes,
The metaphor of his taking on its elements and powers as his gown, tent, palace, and chariot invitations us to see the world as one thing he delights in, which is charged along with his power and alive along with his presence. (Psalms 73–150, 402)
He delights in what he’s made as a result of it’s charged along with his power and alive along with his presence. He’s creation’s splendor and majesty.
Good and Very Good
And within the midst of every thing good — the sunshine was good, the land was good, the lions had been good, the honey was actually good — within the midst of every thing else, God outdid himself. He made creatures in his personal picture — man and girl, you and me. And solely then did he say, “very good.” You’ll be able to virtually style his pleasure within the phrases. “Excellent.”
Why very good? Why particularly pleasant? We don’t have time right here to discover all of the goodness of the picture of God in mankind, however one important distinction between humanity and every thing else he had made is that, of all of the wonders he had conceived and created, solely this creature might share in his pleasure over what he made. Solely the person and girl had the capability to expertise fullness of pleasure and pleasures forevermore. Solely to them might he someday say, “This stuff I’ve spoken to you, that my pleasure could also be in you, and that your pleasure could also be full” (John 15:11). And solely this creature, amongst all of the creatures on earth, could be a creating creature, taking what he had made and making one thing new. And people are our subsequent two stops within the park: We delight, and we create.
We Delight
At our third cease, we lastly arrive the place the psalm begins. Verse 1: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you’re very nice!” Discover, the primary phrases of the psalm are usually not solid into the heavens, however directed inward, on the coronary heart. Bless the Lord, O my soul! Get up! Cease nodding off earlier than the splendor and majesty throughout you.
I discussed earlier that, in our circles, we do Psalm 103 reflection fairly nicely (rehearsing the glories of redemption) and Psalm 105 fairly nicely (recounting the tales of what God has finished in Scripture and historical past). How usually, although, when our hearts develop cool or uninteresting or distracted, do we expect to immerse ourselves not in additional books, however in timber and fields and birds and streams — in fall leaves and perhaps even in some snow? How usually have you ever considered the outside as a way of grace?
Prescription for an Anxious Age
As I watch, over and over in Scripture, how creation deepens religion, and quiets fears, and instills confidence, and conjures up braveness, and awakens pleasure, I can’t assist however surprise if creation isn’t one of many nice prescriptions we’re lacking in our trendy and anxious age. A lot of our technological lives in the present day carry the phantasm of management — deciding what we eat, the place we eat, after we eat; deciding what we watch, the place we watch, after we watch. Our telephones inform us we’re in management. Our vehicles inform us we’re in management. Our heating and air-conditioning inform us we’re in management. Creation disagrees. Creation dispels the mirage of my sovereignty. Creation shouts, “You’re not in management! And this world isn’t about you.”
That’s a sermon we have to hear and rehear and rehear, particularly in the present day. You’ll be able to’t resolve the climate. You’ll be able to’t develop grass in that nook of the yard. You’ll be able to’t management the squirrels or moles. You’ll be able to’t tame a thunderstorm. You’ll be able to’t survive the bitter chilly. You’ll be able to’t outlive an oak tree. However God can, and does, and can.
Within the introduction to Pleasures of God, Pastor John says,
Except we start with God on this approach, when the gospel involves us, we are going to inevitably put ourselves on the heart of it. We’ll really feel that our worth quite than God’s worth is the driving pressure within the gospel. We’ll hint the gospel again to God’s want for us as a substitute of tracing it again to the sovereign grace that rescues sinners who want God. (22)
Souls centered on self are properties constructed on sand. If we subtly imagine that we’re in management, that our price is driving historical past, that God actually wants us, it’s no surprise we’re so anxious. Watch the place our wild safari ends. Verse 34: “Could my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice” — not in mountains or moons or donkeys, no: “for I rejoice within the Lord.” Those that see probably the most in creation are by no means left with simply creation; no, they’re drawn into a better, extra intense love — a better, extra intense good: God himself.
Wild Glimpses of God
All the things God has made is preaching, with loudspeakers cranked excessive and embedded in all places we flip — and but we frequently have our heads down, scrolling on our telephones. So put the telephone down for a second (flip it off if it’s important to) and raise up your eyes.
When the solar rises every morning, God means for that flaming ball of ferocity, a star the scale of 100 earths and heated to 10 thousand levels, to remind us that he’s robust, huge, dependable, and radiating with pleasure. Psalm 19:4–5: “He has set a tent for the solar, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a powerful man, runs its course with pleasure.”
After we see the celebrities scattered in a transparent evening sky, an estimated 100 billion in our galaxy alone, God needs us to see how detailed and private he’s. “He determines the variety of the celebrities; he offers to all of them their names” (Psalm 147:4). Why would he identify stars? Not for his or her sake (they’re stars!), however for ours — in order that we’d know that he is aware of and cares for every one among us.
When clouds crawl throughout the sky and over our heads, they don’t seem to be meant to be huge, miraculous afterthoughts (or miserable inconveniences, for that matter). No, they need to draw our consideration into heaven and stretch our imaginations, far past them, into the faithfulness of God. “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds” (Psalm 36:5).
After we make out a mountain within the distance (or drive by way of them as my household did on trip earlier this yr), we’re meant to see monumental shadows of the majesty of God. “Wonderful are you,” we sing, “extra majestic than the mountains filled with prey” (Psalm 76:4).
After we hear the frenzy of a river or stream, it will possibly encourage us to drink extra deeply from all that God is for us in Christ, the nicely who quenches each thirst eternally. “They feast on the abundance of your own home,” David writes, “and also you give them drink from the river of your delights” (Psalm 36:8).
And that’s to say nothing of all we see and expertise of God within the growth of thunder (Psalm 29:3), the ruthlessness of lions (Psalm 7:2), the fragility of sheep (Psalm 78:52), the sweetness of honey (Psalm 19:10), the energy of horses (Psalm 20:7), even the defenselessness of snails (Psalm 58:8). The heavens, the earth, and the seas (and all that fills them) are declaring the glory of God to us. How a lot richer, sweeter, and extra tangible may our theology be if we had been prepared to cease and look and delight greater than we do?
What About Sin?
Earlier than we transfer away from cease three — our enjoyment of who God is and what he’s made — the psalm ends in a wierd however becoming place:
Could my meditation be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice within the Lord.
We delight. Subsequent verse:
Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
and let the depraved be no extra! (Psalm 104:34–35)
After I first learn that, I believed, Now that’s a wierd approach to answer all he’s seen. “Have a look at the heavens! Have a look at the mountains! Have a look at the lions! Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the depraved be no extra.” Appears unusual, proper? It’s not how many people would suppose to hope after seeing a lot of God in what he’s made.
It’s not unusual. The psalmist lets his thoughts wander over surprise after surprise till his coronary heart is about on hearth once more for God, after which he opens his eyes, and he realizes simply how damaged this world is, how far it’s strayed from its Creator. He feels, once more, that the wondrous creation is enslaved to futility, in bondage to corruption. It’s magnificent as it’s, but it surely’s nowhere close to what it could possibly be. Nowhere close to what it as soon as was. Due to sin, we stay within the ruins of paradise. And the terrible, tragic disparity between what was and what is exposes the seriousness of sin — the seriousness of my sin.
Sin vandalized the satisfying glory of God in creation. Sin launched illness and hostility and dying. Having fun with what stays of the great thing about creation ought to make us hate sin all of the extra, particularly our personal sin. And it ought to make us lengthy for God to make all of it new once more. Verse 29 once more: “Whenever you take away their breath, they die and return to their mud” — sin did that. Subsequent verse: “Whenever you ship forth your Spirit, they’re created, and also you renew the face of the bottom.”
Demise doesn’t get the final phrase right here. The sunshine will invade the darkness. God will make all these items, together with us, new. All who oppose him might be consumed. The depraved might be evicted. We’re destined to stay on an actual earth like ours, with actual our bodies like ours, surrounded by wonders and blessings and experiences like ours, however with out the weak point, mortality, and sin that plague all we all know and revel in now. That world might be like ours, however wonderful. We might be ourselves, however wonderful. The psalmist is aware of how this may all finish, and so he ends not with despair, however hope: “Bless the Lord, O my soul! Reward the Lord!” (Psalm 104:35).
God creates. God delights. We delight. And now, lastly, we create.
We Create
The pleasure of God in creation and human tradition: that was my project. After I say tradition, I imply all the great that people do and make. I’m pondering of the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the ocean and over the birds of the heavens and over each dwelling factor that strikes on the earth.” We gained’t get to spend almost as a lot time right here, however we don’t must journey far in our park to see what we have to see.
The younger lions roar for his or her prey,
looking for their meals from God.
When the solar rises, they steal away
and lie down of their dens.
Man goes out to his work
and to his labor till the night. (Psalm 104:21–23)
Man goes out to his work, and works a full day. It feels a bit of anticlimactic, proper? The timber climb into the heavens, the mountains shake with wildlife, the lions roar their starvation for all to listen to, the moon ushers in fall and winter and spring, the solar chooses when the sky goes from blue to crimson to purple to darkish — and Larry heads over to Pike Lake Drive to clear one other drain (or no matter odd work God has given you to do).
“The odd work of man is likely one of the manifold works of God.”
“Man goes out to his work and to his labor till the night.” Now take heed to this within the very subsequent verse: “O Lord, how manifold are your works!” — timber and mountains and lions and the work that man can do. “In knowledge have you ever made all of them; the earth is stuffed with your creatures” (Psalm 104:24). The odd work of man is likely one of the manifold works of God. No different creature can do what you do. What you are able to do in eight or ten or twelve hours along with your thoughts and arms and presents says as a lot or extra about God as a sundown or a canyon or a thunderstorm.
Solely God might conceive of a creature able to doing the work you do. Each working human you meet (white collar or blue collar; paid or unpaid; scholar, worker, supervisor, or stay-at-home mom) is a dwelling canvas coated within the creativity of God — whether or not they imagine in him or not, whether or not they see the glory of their work or not. That they will do what they do, no matter they do and nevertheless nicely they do it, reminds us of simply how way more God can do.
Human Palms on the Desk
We get another small glimpse in Psalm 104 into the pleasure of God in human tradition, in verses 14–15:
You trigger the grass to develop for the livestock
and crops for man to domesticate,
that he could convey forth meals from the earth
and wine to gladden the center of man,
oil to make his face shine
and bread to strengthen man’s coronary heart.
Wine to gladden the center of man. Bread to strengthen man’s coronary heart. Grapes remodeled by way of crushing and ready. Wheat remodeled by mixing and baking. Wine and bread. I needed to finish right here as a result of tomorrow (or within the subsequent couple of weeks) we’ll every collect in our church buildings and we’ll maintain and revel in bread and wine collectively, the Lord’s Supper. This isn’t the purpose of verses 14 and 15; bread and wine had been odd fare for Israel in these days. However they’re not odd fare any longer, not on the opposite facet of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.
Is there a extra delicate and but gorgeous marriage of God’s pleasure in creation and tradition than within the feast we eat again and again to recollect all he’s for us in Jesus? I would like this to be a tangible, holdable, edible reminder for you of what we’ve seen right here. Jesus selected to serve bread, not wheat. And he selected to serve wine, not water. Each are merchandise of human creativity and energy — of tradition. Each quietly dignify all that mankind can do and make.
After which, by way of Psalm 104, we style much more which means within the wine. Bread strengthens man’s coronary heart. Wine gladdens the hearts of males. Peter Leithart writes,
Jesus didn’t give his disciples grapes, however the blood of the grape, which is the creation remodeled by human creativity and labor. Like bread, wine assumes a level of technological sophistication, in addition to a measure of social and political formation. Wine, nevertheless, is a drink of celebration and never mere diet. If Jesus had needed to depict man’s relation to creation and to God in purely utilitarian phrases, bread and water would have sufficed. This Bridegroom, nevertheless, adjustments water to wine, and in doing so, clarifies man’s function on the planet. (Blessed Are the Hungry, 169)
And what’s that function? In each work and relaxation, to take pleasure in what God has made and finished. In the end, to take pleasure in God himself. “Then I’ll go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding pleasure” (Psalm 43:4). Cup after cup, the wine reminds us that the Lord’s Supper is just not a eulogy, however a toast. It performs an previous, beloved refrain: “In your presence there’s fullness of pleasure; at your proper hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).
The Magnificence in Each Magnificence
We don’t, nevertheless, want the bread and wine in Psalm 104 to get to the carpenter from Nazareth. We’d be simply tremendous with birds and grass and badgers. Hebrews 1:1–2:
Way back, at many occasions and in some ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, however in these final days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the inheritor of all issues, by way of whom additionally he created the world.
After which, quoting Psalm 104 of all locations, he writes, “Of the angels God says, ‘He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fireplace.’ However of the Son he says, . . .
You, Lord, laid the muse of the earth to start with,
and the heavens are the work of your arms;
they’ll perish, however you stay;
they’ll all put on out like a garment,
like a gown you’ll roll them up,
like a garment they are going to be modified.
However you’re the identical,
and your years can have no finish.” (Hebrews 1:7–12)
“When the Father seems to be out over the goodness of creation, on the heart of all of it, he sees his Son.”
When the Father seems to be out over the goodness of creation, on the heart of all of it, he sees his Son. And he loves what he sees. “All issues had been made by way of him, and with out him was not any factor made that was made” (John 1:3). Steve Dewitt writes, “Till we see the great thing about Christ, we are going to by no means see the true magnificence in anything” (Eyes Huge Open, 116). Which means if we actually wish to hear what God is saying within the blues of bluebirds and waddle of penguins, within the raging of rivers and stillness of lakes, within the opening of lilies and landslides alongside cliffs, we first and eternally repair our eyes on Jesus. All of the Scriptures, starting with Moses and all of the Prophets, are about him (Luke 24:27). And all of creation is preaching in that very same sequence.
Who’s the star of the Psalm 104 galaxy — solar and moon, birds and lions, oceans and forests? The one who turned flesh and dwelt and labored amongst us. “He had no type or majesty that we should always have a look at him, and no magnificence that we should always want him” (Isaiah 53:2) — and but he’s the sweetness in each magnificence, the paradise hiding in our fallen world, the Creator born within the likeness of the creature, the solar dawning on the darkness round us, the crucified, risen, reigning — creating and sustaining — Jesus. And so at any time when we take pleasure in and use creation rightly, it is going to certainly lead us to him.
