John 1:1-5
Back to the garden.
Quick caveat, as you turn to John 1:1-5. I want you to think of tonight’s message as prologue.
1969 is notable for a lot of things. However, I feel that three standout more so than the others. July 20th 1969 was when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Sept 23rd 1969 was when our fearless leader the Reverend Doctor M. David Chambers was born. About a month before that momentous day, was August 15th-18th 1969. Any guesses to what that was? Woodstock!
Popular Singer and Song Writer Joni Mitchell was unable to attend Woodstock. She was going to appear on the Dick Caveatt show later that week and would have been unable to attend both events. Her agents talked her into doing the TV show vs. Woodstock. There in her hotel room in NY as she watched the televised coverage of the festival she penned the following lyrics which became the official theme song for the festival.
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden
The garden referenced in the song is the garden of Eden. Woodstock was about advocating for peace and love, and the way things were before the fall of man. Even it they couldn’t admit that or even realize it.
That song also serves as the inspiration for tonights message. Turn to John 1:1-5 as go into a sermon entitled “Back to the Garden”
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.
It’s been almost 2 months so lets get right to it shall we? It is 2020. The times in which we live are in flux. There is no shortage of voices whether they be personal, private, professional or public suggesting that if certain politicians are elected to office (or not), or certain industries are allowed to survive (or not), or certain ideas are given airtime (or not), the world as we know it will come to an end. Some of this is simply clickbait, engineered by people who make money off of or find enjoyment in fear. But some of it is based in reality.
Wars are raging. Ecological
disasters are increasingly frequent and devastating. The threat of mass
shootings hovers over our schools, our public gatherings, and our places of
worship.
The world, it would
seem, is on fire. Fear and uncertainty have set it ablaze.
Historically speaking,
this is nothing new, so we shouldn’t make too much of how chaotic the world
appears in comparison to past eras. Since the Garden of Eden, our core human
failure isn’t disobedience or pride or the absence of faith (although those are
certainly reflections of our fallen state). Rather, it’s our tendency to point
our sincerely held beliefs in the wrong direction (Rom. 1:21–23). Another word
for it is idolatry—devoting ourselves ultimately to that which isn’t ultimate.
Every generation repeats
this same cycle. Devoting ourselves ultimately to that which isn’t ultimate. We
know things are wrong, we know life isn’t the way it should be. We want to get
back to the way life was before the fall, we want to get back to the garden.
A generation tried this
with Woodstock and for a moment or so people had hope. Yet, it wouldn’t last.
Then when I was elementary school as the oh so popular All-Star Charity single!
For those that are to young to remember that it’s when a bunch of popular
artists of the day would all get together to sing a song about world peace and
the proceeds from the single would go towards a charity. The more popular ones
were Do they know it’s Christmas? Give peace a chance, hands across America and
we are the world. For a moment there was hope then same ol same ol. When I was
in high school in the mid to late 90’s the big thing was saving the
environment! Reduce, reuse, recycle! There was even a wide variety
environmental cartoons where the hero stopped the villain whose typical goal
wasn’t world domination but to pollute the oceans and kill sea turtles. I
remember when the city first started collecting recycling and I was all gung ho
about it as a 7th grader. Just ask my dad. I really felt like I was
making a difference with each empty Pepsi bottle I recycled. Then I would see
people toss whole bags of trash just out the window going down 501.
Despite our best
efforts, humanity suffers most fundamentally not from a lack of faith, but from
a misplaced faith. The whole of human history we can see humanity at least to some
degree recognizing it’s sin problem, but then attempting to cover it up
themselves. Adam and Eve tried fig leaves. Able tried bringing his own offering
instead of what God requested of him. People tried to build the tower of babel.
While it’s not recorded in the biblical flood account, I’m willing to bet you
at least one person tried building their own boat after listening to Noah
preach.
All throughout the Old
Testament you see the never ending tragedy of God’s people trusting in things
other than God himself. They trust in themselves, in their kings, in their
political leaders, in their technology, in their history, in their wealth, yet
it is only when they trust in God do they have any hope or peace. There is a
world desperate to place its faith onto to anyone or anything that promises
peace, safety and prosperity. That desperation is only going to grow in 2020.
I know many of you feel
sad, confused, or even laugh a little as missionaries speak here and tell of
the assorted idols in whatever foreign country they are serving in. How
ridiculous we think! That they worship god’s made of wood or stone. Yet, the
human heart, is an idol factory.
We make them anytime we
pledge our loyalty to religious, business, or political leaders and believe them
when they say they alone can fix what ails us, they hold the truth, or they are
worthy of our devotion. We make them anytime we “betray and hate each other”
(Matt. 24:10) over differing ideologies. And we make them whenever we abandon
our primary calling to love God and our neighbor and replace that calling with
another passion, project or cause.
When we do this. We are
no different then those hippies at Woodstock saying “Drop Acid not bombs man!” We
can’t expect different results.
This is where we are in 2020 and this is where we are at 2000 years ago when the Apostle John wrote “ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.
There are many of you that have lost focus
on Jesus in the last year or so and have been trying to find your back to the
garden without him. There are many of you that will lose your way in 2020
distracted by social media, the presidential election, or just your day to day
living. There sadly, will be significant number of you, 100% certain that the
world will end based on the results of Tuesday, November 3rd 2020.
“The end is still to come,” Jesus told his
disciples. “All these are the beginning of birth pains” (Matt. 24:6, 8). This
doesn’t mean is our present experiences are somehow insignificant or less
painful than what’s to come. It simply means that, in order to live as
“faithful and wise servants” (v. 45), we have to operate with an accurate
picture of reality, and this starts by acknowledging that the end has not yet
come. That God is still on the throne.
Our study in the gospel of John will point
us the way back, the way back to the garden, the way back to God. And it is in this time—not some other time—that God has
called us to demonstrate a faithful presence. Our time is best spent, not in
quibbling over which politician,
organization or technological innovation, will or won’t save us, but in
remaining faithful to the God has called us to stand as witness in the here and
now. With a society so eager to believe in something, we must point them to
something to believe in.
John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me
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