Introduction
This morning we were thinking about God’s promise in Genesis 8 that he would never again curse the ground because man and the wicked things we do. And so, instead of sending another flood on the earth to destroy all of life, the Lord will ensure that as long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease. God was going to preserve life on the earth so that, when the time was right, he could send his only begotten Son into the world to save God’s people from destruction and give us everlasting life in his presence. And so, God was prepared to put up with the sins of all so that he could give salvation to us.
This evening we’re going to use the passage we read a moment ago from Romans 11 to think about God’s work in creating and sustaining the world and everything in the world.
The doxology
We’re going through Paul’s letter to the Romans on Sunday mornings. And we’re coming to the end of Romans 8, which is that magnificent chapter which begins with the lovely promise that there’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and it ends with the lovely promise that nothing will separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. So, no condemnation and no separation. It’s wonderful. And everything between the beginning and the end of Romans 8 is equally wonderful.
And if you’re familiar with the book of Romans, then you’ll know that in chapters 9 and 10 and 11 Paul deals with the problem of Israel’s unbelief. In verse 2 of chapter 9 Paul says that he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart, because so many of his fellow Jews do not believe in the Saviour. And he spends the next three chapters writing about the Jews and their unbelief and how it fits in with God’s purposes. And, God willing, we’ll work our way through those chapters in the coming weeks on Sunday mornings.
But those chapters end with Paul’s marvellous doxology in verses 33 to 36. In these verses, he praises God for the depths of the riches of his wisdom and knowledge. So, the richness of God’s wisdom and knowledge is so great that his judgments — or the things he decides to do — are unsearchable. We can’t get to the bottom of God’s wisdom and knowledge. And his ways — the things he does and his reasons for them — are beyond our knowing. And so, who has ever known his mind? Who has ever understood his plans and purposes? We were thinking about that last Sunday morning and what it means for our prayer life and how we don’t know what to pray for ever, because how can we possibly understand God’s holy purposes?
And who has ever been wise enough to give advice to God who knows all things perfectly? And who has ever given anything to God that God does not already possess? All things come from God and therefore God is no one’s debtor. He does not owe us anything, but we owe him all our praise and thanks and worship. We owe him all our praise and thanks and worship, because all that we possess has come to us from him. He is the giver of all good gifts, because all things are from him and they are through him and they are to him. Let me say that again: all things are from him and they are through him and they are to him. And I want to use that one verse to think about God’s work in creating and sustaining the world and everything in the world.
God
And before we think about God’s work in creating and sustaining the world and everything in the world, we have to think about God himself.
Paul’s doxology, or his song of praise, is about God. And the God we praise is the one who is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. Being infinite, he is not restricted in any way and there’s no end to his perfections. So, he is infinitely wise and powerful and good and holy and just and true. And being eternal, he is without beginning or end. And for him, there is no past that is gone and for him, there is no future that he must wait for. For him, everything is eternally present. And being unchangeable, he cannot change. The God we speak to in prayer today is the same God Adam spoke to in the Garden of Eden. He is exactly the same today as he has always been.
And he is eternally the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: one God in three persons. So, we believe in one God, but that one God is the Father who is God and the Son who is God and the Spirit who is God. But there are not three gods; there is but one God. The Father is Lord. The Son is Lord. The Holy Spirit is Lord. But there are not three lords; there is but one Lord. The Father is eternal. The Son is eternal. The Spirit is eternal. But there are not three eternal beings. There is but one eternal being.
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten. The Son was neither made nor created, but is begotten from the Father eternally. The Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten, but proceeds from the Father and the Son eternally. And so, there’s one Father, not three fathers. There’s one Son, three sons. There’s one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits. And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God.
And this God, who is infinite and eternal and unchangeable and who is eternally three persons, has all life — fullness of life, abundant, overflowing life — in himself. And since he has all life in himself, then he does not rely on anyone or anything outside of himself for anything. He is completely independent and self-sufficient.
And that means that he did not need to create us. It’s not as if he lacked something and that he had to create us to supply what was lacking in himself. He was not bored or lonely or anything like that. When we’re bored or lonely, we turn to our family and friends to help us. But God does not need us. And he doesn’t need us to serve him, the way a king needs servants to serve him. In fact, God doesn’t even need our worship. We need to worship him, because we find rest and joy in worshipping him. But he doesn’t need our worship and we do not add anything to him in any way by our worship of him.
And so, this God did not create us so that we could give to him. Instead he created us so that he could give to us. He created us so that he could give his love to us. And he gives us our life and everything else. This is the God Paul is praising in Romans 11.
From God
And Paul says that all things are from this God.
This is what we learn from Genesis 1, where we’re told that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the words ‘the heavens and the earth’ refer to everything that is not God, including what is visible and what is invisible. So, in the beginning, God created the universe around us which can be seen; and he created the invisible heavens and their angels and every spiritual power that exists and is not God.
So, before he created the heavens and the earth, there was only God. There was nothing else. And then God created everything else. And at the beginning of Genesis 1, we read that the earth was formless when God first created it. But then God began to shape it by dividing the light and darkness into day and night and by dividing the sky above and the earth beneath and by dividing the waters and the dry land. And so, he shaped it. And the earth was empty when God first created it. But then God began to fill it. He filled the sky above with the sun and the moon and the planets and stars. He filled the waters with fish. And he filled the land with plants and trees and animals. And last of all he made Adam and Eve, the first man and woman.
And so, all things come from God. Whatever exists exists because of him. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
Theologians say that God created all things from nothing. And when they say ‘from nothing’ they mean from nothing. So, he did not make all things out of himself, which is what some people believe. They believe that the universe is a kind of emanation from God so that it is part of him. God in a sense extended his own being outwards to form the heavens and the earth. Others believe that God used pre-existing stuff to create the heavens and the earth. When we make something, we take something that already exists and we change it in something else. We take bricks and make a house. We take flour and make a cake. We take a seed and grow a flower. And so, people say God must have started with something too. He must have taken some pre-existing eternal material and he turned it into the heavens and the earth. But no. The universe did not come out of God so that it is part of him. And God did not make the universe from pre-existing stuff. God made the universe from nothing. And nothing means nothing. Nothing is not something. It’s not a blob of stuff. Nothing is nothing. God started with absolutely nothing and he created the heavens and the earth and all things visible and invisible. And therefore, all things are from God.
And before moving on, we should note that this doctrine of creation is not just about something that happened in the beginning. This doctrine of creation is about what is means to be a creature. To be a creature means that we are moment by moment dependent on God who made us. We exist moment by moment on him. He sustains our being moment by moment. And so, we are never independent beings who can sustain ourselves. We are always dependent on him.
And so, as one writer (Davison) has put it, creation is not like a house. Once a builder builds a house, the house will stay standing without the builder. He can go off and build something else. Creation is more like a sunbeam which cannot exist without the sun. Or creation is like a song which needs a singer to keep singing it. We need God to sustain us moment by moment.
And that brings me to what Paul says next.
Through God
In his doxology, Paul says that all things are through God. Many of the commentators believe that Paul is referring here to the way God sustains his creation. So, if the words from God refer to how God created us in the beginning, and if the words to God refer to the consummation of all things in the future, then the words through God refer to how God sustains us in the present.
So, all things came from God in the beginning and we now live and we continue to exist through God and through his goodness and through his powerful preservation of all things. As I’ve just said, we are more like a sunbeam or a song than a building. A building continues to exist without any help from the builder. But a sunbeam needs the sun to keep shining. A song needs a singer to keep singing. And we need God to sustain us.
And one of the ways God sustains us is by means of the harvest. Year by year he causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall and the crops to grow. And year by year he sends the farmer into the fields to tend the crops and to harvest them. And he sends others to prepare the food for sale. And so, when we go into the supermarket, the shelves are full of good things for us to eat and to enjoy. And when we go home, our cupboards are not bare, but they contain God’s good gifts to us.
And God not only feeds us, but he feeds all of his creation. In Psalm 104 the psalmist lists all the ways God provides for donkeys and birds and people. He says about God:
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the air nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the earth is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for man to cultivate —
bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread that sustains his heart.
So, God provides water for the beasts of the field and he sends rain to water the ground and to make the crops grow so that we too have food and drink to eat and enjoy.
And the psalmist goes on to say:
The moon marks off the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
Then man goes out to his work,
to his labour until evening.
Even lions, the kings of the jungle, rely on God for their food. And God has so arranged it that they go out at night while we’re sleeping. And when the daylight comes, we can go out to do our work.
And the psalmist keeps going:
These all look to you
to give them their food at the proper time.
When you give it to them,
they gather it up;
when you open your hand,
they are satisfied with good things.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
All of God’s living creatures look to him to give them the food they need at its proper time. And when the Lord gives it to us, we’re satisfied, because we’ve received from him all that we need. And we can rejoice in his kindness to us and give thanks to him for his goodness and his mighty power by which he upholds us and everything else.
And not only does he provide us with food, but he provides us with everything else we need. He gives us hospitals and health centres which are full of all kinds of people with the knowledge and the expertise and the desire to help us when we’re ill. Whole buildings with multiple floors are dedicated to making us well. He has given us dentists to help with our teeth and opticians to help us with our eye-sight. He’s given us care-homes to help us when we’re frail. He’s given us MLAs and councillors to run our country and our city. He’s given us bankers to look after our money. He’s given us teachers to teach our children and young people. He’s given us all kinds of artists and entertainers to inspire and amuse us. He’s given us builders to build and maintain our homes and others to maintain our roads. And he’s given us police officers to uphold law and order. And I could go on and on and on. The Lord our God has surrounded us with all kinds of people to help us and to sustain us. These are all his good gifts to us and this is how he sustains us every day.
God has fullness of life in himself. And so, he does not rely on anyone or anything outside of himself for anything. But we rely on God for everything. And because he is infinitely and eternally and unchangeably good — because he himself is love — then he is good to all of his creation and he lovingly bestows on us all that we need. And since he is infinitely and eternally and unchangeably powerful, then he’s is able to give us what we need. And when we lack what we need, he invites us to pray to him and to make our needs known to him. And to encourage us he tells us in his word that if he cares for the birds of the air, then he will care for us too, because we are much more valuable to him than the birds.
To God
So, all things are from God because he created all things in the beginning. And all things are through God because he sustains us through his goodness and his powerful preservation of all things. And all things are to God.
The Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden held out to Adam and Eve the hope of everlasting life in the presence of God. But when Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, he forfeited for himself and for his descendants the right to eat from the Tree of Life and to live with God for ever. And so, instead of coming to God, Adan and Eve were sent away from God.
And the whole of God’s good creation was spoiled because of Adam’s sin in the beginning. And, as we were reading recently in Romans 8, the whole creation is groaning now. It’s groaning now because nothing is the way it’s supposed to be and the whole creation is groaning and waiting for the day when it will be set free from its bondage to frustration and decay and is able to be what it was meant to be, which is the place where all of God’s people will come to God and where they will live in his presence for ever.
But God, who made the world in the beginning, was not willing to abandon it, even though its inhabitants turned from him in rebellion. Because of his overflowing love for his creation, he sent his only begotten Son into the world to rescue us from destruction and to restore us to God. Through faith in God’s Son we receive forgiveness and peace with God and the gift of God the Holy Spirit, who works in the souls of believers to enable us to live each day for God and his glory. And he helps us to do what is good and pleasing in God’s sight, while we wait for the day when we’ll be made perfect in the presence of God in a renewed heaven and earth. And so, we will come to God in the life to come through Jesus Christ his Son and by his Spirit. And there, in God’s glorious presence, we will praise our God: the Father who loves us and who sent his Son to die for us; the Son who loves us and who was willing to be sent to die for us; and the Holy Spirit who loves us and who enabled us to trust in the Son who was sent to die for us. To this God be the glory for ever!
Conclusion
Augustine, one of the greatest theologians of all time, addressed God in his Confessions, saying: ‘You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.’ Augustine meant that God made us to find everlasting rest in knowing God and his abounding love for us. Until we know God and his abounding love for us, we will be restless. Everything in this world will leave us unsatisfied, because nothing in this world can take the place in our lives that only God can take. Our Church’s Shorter Catechism is saying the same thing when it says that our chief end in life is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. We were made by God to know him and to find joy in knowing him.
Already in this life we can know God and we can rest in him and enjoy him, because he gives his believing people a sense of his marvellous love which makes our hearts rejoice. And what we begin to know and experience in this life will be made perfect in the life to come when God makes us perfect in his presence. And so, it will be that we who have come from God and who are sustained through God will finally come to God, where we will worship him without weariness and where he will pour his love on us for ever.
