God created the heavens and the earth.
We all know that, right? But have you ever stopped to think if God created this world and He said that it's good and then He put us in charge of it, how does He want us to take care of it? The environment matters to God and it needs to matter to us. Stick around because I want to help you learn to become a Biblical environmentalist. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry motivating Christians to live like Christians.
We're in the middle of our series, Caring Enough to Confront, bringing light, not heat, to the most critical issues of our day. And before we get started, let me encourage you to use Chip's message notes while you listen. They'll really help you get the most out of what you're about to hear.
Download them under the Broadcasts tab at LivingontheEdge.org, app listeners tap fill in notes. Well, if you're ready, here's Chip with the second half of his message, The Church and the Environment. Psalm 8, he says, when I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place. And then he ponders, in the awesomeness of God, what is mankind that you're mindful of him? Human beings that you care for them. You made them a little lower than the angels and notice the role that mankind has in the environment. And you crown them with glory and honor. And you made them what?
What's your role? Rulers over the works of your hands. You put everything under their feet, the flocks, the herds, the animals, the wild things, the birds, the sky, the fish of the sea, everything that swims in the ocean. Message, all living things have value, but not all living things have equal value. The earth is not God. It is not our mother.
It is a created thing. Whales and babies do not have equal value. And yet when we think wrongly about the environment, we kill babies and we save whales.
Think of it. It's a theological issue. Should we save whales?
Absolutely. But we have movements in the environment, some of the environmental communities that, you know, your dog or your cat or this lizard has the same rights because it is a living species and you're just part of the living species and all of the earth is God. And therefore when there's priority decisions, you have no greater priority than a dog or a cat or a lizard.
That is not true. Now what we're gonna see is God will call us to be good stewards of those things. But animals don't have the same rights as humans.
By contrast, here's the implication. We are to use, not abuse, animals, plants and resources to glorify God. See, the Bible is so amazingly balanced.
Over here it says, don't do that. And then over here it'll say, yes, you're above the animals. And then the Proverbs will say, a wicked man is cruel to his animals, but the godly are kind. Wicked people abuse the land, but godly and righteous people are good stewards of my creation. So the Bible is very clear about the balance of how we treat things.
But waste, the things that we've done and often, we just need to own our stuff as Christians. We have been some of the slowest to be responsible in the areas of stewardship of the environment and concern for it. Lake Erie, when I was a kid I remember Lake Erie got to the point there was no living thing in it at all. Think of that. It was dead.
The entire lake was dead. All the pollutants, all the stuff put in it. See, at the heart of pollution is greed and ignorance and carelessness.
At the heart is speed. At the heart is money. At the heart is we don't really care about other people. We don't really care about the planet. We don't really care about long-term implications. It's what can we get now? How much can we get?
How fast can we do it? And those things always lead to not taking care. Now, on the other hand, God says very clearly, hey, you know what? You should be productive. Take things wisely out of the ground. There's energy to be had. That's why I put it there. But we've been very poor stewards since the Industrial Revolution.
Strip mining, clear cutting. And many believers, we either don't have a position on it or we just hope it all goes away. And we view people on either side as radicals or extremists. It seems to me the Bible has quite a bit to say about our role. Here's the exciting thing. I was thinking about Lake Erie, and the experts said it would take 50 to 100 years for any life to be regenerated in that lake. After five to 10 years, when the pollutants stopped, fish were flourishing. This amazing, amazing planet, the wisdom of God, the oil spill that was, what, multiple times the Valdez that was in the ocean and all that we went through, it has been amazing. You know, we good humans got as much out of there as we could. It's amazing what God has done.
All the organisms and responding and self-cleaning. But, boy, we've got to be good stewards of that. You can use it, but you can't abuse it. Fifth, God commands environmental stewardship to protect the land, animals, and vegetation for the common good. So he says, yes, man, you're above it, I own it, you're a steward, given your dimension, authority, responsibility. Don't worship it, enjoy it. You're above the animals, but here's the deal. You're a steward.
You have a responsibility to care for the land, the animals, and the vegetation. And you say, well, where do you get that? It's very interesting. All the way back in the Old Testament when God was preparing his people to be a great people, he took a group of slaves over here out of Egypt, completely uneducated in a world of all these multi-gods, demonstrated by the 10 different plagues, his superiority.
Every one of those was a polemic. Every one of those was a god of Egypt, and God did that, and he takes them out, and then he brings them to Sinai to reveal who he is, and then he gives them laws about his holiness in Leviticus, and then the rest of the Pentateuch is, this is the kind of nation I want you to be, and he starts giving them rules and decrees, and he talks about those so that the world would know there would be no other nation with laws as beautiful and perfect and amazing. And we read that, and we just think, you know, what do you mean? They didn't know about bacteria, and had ceremonial laws to wash their hands at certain times. They didn't know about the blood clotting the eighth day from a Purdue study, and that's the best time to do circumcision, but that's when God commanded them to do it.
They didn't know anything about nitrients out of the soil and rotating crops. In Leviticus chapter 25, God says to them, I mean, they're just coming out, they're becoming a new people. He says, okay, after six years, leave the land fallow.
They didn't know why, it was just a command. Don't plan anything, and God planned in in his law restoration. Then he says after every seven-year period, seven times seven, 49 years, on the 50th year, it's the year of Jubilee. All the land goes back to the original people. God knew that with no limitations, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, some by opportunity, some by bad decision, some by sin. So what he says is, okay, every 50 years we're going to reboot. If your family had owned this land, you can never sell it, or this tribe, or this tribe, or this tribe.
And so he does it in such a way that even the loans and financial things were done on how long you were to the Jubilee. And he says, why? Because the land belongs to me. Later in that Bible study, he'll talk about Deuteronomy 25, he'll say, here's what you need to understand, animals matter. So when your ox is out working for you, don't you dare muzzle it. I even care about the animals, treat them well. In Deuteronomy 20, he'll say, when you find yourself in a battle and besieging a city, don't you dare cut down the trees that have fruit on them.
You can use these kind of trees. Have you ever thought, have you ever stepped back and thought about, is that like amazing? I mean, is it amazing that God would give rules and provisions for quote what we would think a very low technology group of people to preserve animals, the soil, an economic system? Here's the implication. The implication is consumption and productivity must be governed by the boundaries of conservation. Are we gonna be consumers?
Of course we are. Do we need to be productive? Yes, be fruitful. Subdue authority, yes, but responsibility with conservation. And what God would say is, you know what, let things cost a little bit more, let them take a little bit more time and start balancing out the consumption and the productivity with the conservation. There's certain beautiful things that always need to stay beautiful. There's a way to harvest trees where you replenish.
There's a way to get things out of the soil where you don't ruin it forever. I remember I was a boy about nine or 10 years old, and that was in my house when you got old enough to go see grandma and grandpa for a week by yourself. Well, I was a pretty adventuresome little boy.
And I mean like hanging out with grandma and grandpa after about two days was pretty boring, tell the truth. And so they had a little brick house and then there was a hill, you know, like three or four football fields. And so I wondered, I wonder, you know, what's up on the top? And of course grandma said, don't go up there. So of course I had to figure out what it was. And so I went up there and I remember getting up to the very top just like this and looking out and it looked like a very bad science fiction movie where a nuclear blast had occurred or I had just landed on the moon. Now I didn't know anything about strip mining.
I'm nine, 10 years old. And I began to walk and I began to walk through it and it was just like, I mean, it was sort of the sandy brownish color, big rocks, no trees, no vegetation. And we just went for miles and miles and miles. There were no animals. There was no vegetation.
It was literally like, I've never walked on the moon obviously, but if you ever walked on the moon, it'd be like, I think this is what it would be like. The land was raped. And you know what? That's a violation of what scripture says, but boy, it was fast. People made money. Now just before you lean there, then God would say, no, wait a second.
I want to take care of men. So in response to that, now we have situations where, you know what? This salamander that we may lose is very important, but we have, you know, two million people that need water and farmers who are going to produce for the whole nation, but we can't give them water because we don't want to lose a salamander.
Those aren't hypothetical situations. And so we have people on one side that are so environmentally sensitive that every species, on the other hand, our response and the pendulum can't swing to where we forget there's people and there's food required and there's water and there's technology and it needs to be harnessed with wisdom and balance. And that's why when I prayed about this whole series, I thought, you know what we need? We need a biblical view of the environment because there's a lot of specific things. There's going to be tension. I don't know what the right answer is, but I know that if I understand it belongs to God, I've been given dominion and I'm to appreciate and enjoy it, but not worship it.
And I really get that I'm going to be called an account to be a steward of it and I'm to use it but never abuse it. It begins to give me a grid or a perspective about how do we honor the planet and how do we make sure that people's needs get taken care of. And behind some of this is some of the just pure consumption has to stop.
Some of us just have to say, wait a second, what's fueling all of this? Number six, Christ's redemption and redemptive work includes the earth. You might remember one of the perspectives, and this is a bad theology, but some Christians have purported this. And if you can imagine being a very strong environmentalist and hearing a, quote, Christian say this, this is where we've said some of the dumbest things in the name of God.
Well, this is one. Well, it's all going to burn anyway. So what the heck?
Just get rid of those rainforests if we need the trees and do what you ever need to do. And it's all going up in smoke. In fact, I read the Bible, it says it's going to get worse before it gets better. I guess that's how it gets worse. So jump in, have fun, consume, consume, consume. Don't worry about it. Put your head in the sand.
It's a very interesting perspective, far from biblical. Now, you know that when the fall occurred, when sin occurred in Genesis chapter 3, a major break happened between our relationship with God. A major break happened as we saw in our relationship with one another. We started to hide and to shame.
And then a break happened in our relationship with ourselves. But maybe what you don't realize is that there was a impact on the actual creation. When God made Eden, there were no tsunamis, there were no tornadoes, there were no earthquakes. God, a perfect God, always God, made a perfect world. But when sin occurred, it introduced the imperfection into the world.
Look at your notes. This is a very interesting passage in Romans 8 verses 19 to 21. Notice how the creation is personified here as looking forward to and yearning for the day when redemption is going to occur. Just as sin impacted creation, sin impacted. When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and paid for your sin and he bought you and bought me and bought whoever would turn to him in faith, bought you out of the slave market of sin and paid for it, he redeemed you, it impacted our relationship with God, our relationship with others, our relationship with ourself and the planet. It says, for the creation waits an eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself would be liberated from its bondage and decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
That is a sharp contrast to, well, it's all going to burn anyway. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll return you to Chip's message in just a minute, but let me quickly share with you, God has called us to do incredible ministry work all around the world. And when you partner with us financially, you're part of what we do. So if you'd like to join us, go to livingontheedge.org. We appreciate you giving whatever God leads you to give.
Well, with that, here's Chip. The fact of the matter is, here's the implication. We must treat the earth with the same priority that God does. The earth matters. We want to see, just like your life is changing, like you want to see a marriage restored and redeemed, someone who's out to lunch and struggling with difficult things, you want to see them restored and redeemed. We want to be a part of restoring and redeeming the earth in appropriate ways. The earth matters to God. The concrete Eden was a real place and a great idea gave us freedom, but God's game plan supersedes Eden and part of his game plan is to take us to a new Eden, a very physical place. I think the problem with a lot of Christians is our view of heaven, when people say, you know, I'm going to, Jesus paid for me, I'm going to go to heaven. And you ask people down deep, so what's that going to be like?
And I think the average Christian thinks, well, you know, I've read some of those story books. I think there's clouds. So you float on clouds.
You can order either ice tea or lemonade, probably nothing stronger. And then there's a lot of singing because I hear they worship. So your idea of heaven is, oh, thank God someday, some way I'm going to float on a cloud, drink ice tea or lemonade and do a lot of singing.
But I mean, I do get it. I mean, God's there. Jesus is there. It's got to be really great, but that sort of sounds like it's what it's going to be like. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Nothing could be farther. The moment a believer dies, you come into the immediate presence of Christ, but God has a game plan and his game plan is not some ethereal place. His game plan is a new heaven and a new earth, an actual earth with like trees and fruit trees. And there won't be a sun because his presence will supply the energy and he will be with us and we will be with him and you will have jobs and there'll be culture and there'll be music and there'll be sports and there'll be animals and it'll be just like Eden was supposed to be. And you will have responsibility and the responsibility or lack of responsibility and the role that you have in that new heaven and that new earth will be commiserate with your faithfulness here and what you did with what he gave you.
Your sins are completely forgiven by the grace of God, by Jesus' accomplishment on the cross received by faith. But there is another judgment for Christians about reward and reward is about, you know, all those talents and now I give you charge over these cities. There's a big, some of us would live way different if we actually believed in a new heaven and a new earth and a real eternity as opposed to this is all there is. You got to see this for yourself. Please, you know, we looked at the first page of the Bible.
This is going to be one of the most amazing sermons we've ever had together. We're going to look at the first page. Turn to the last page in the Bible or at least almost. Revelation chapter 21. This is why the earth matters.
I hear those pages flipping. It's the sound of beauty. Now listen, redemption impacts the earth. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne of God saying, now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.
He who was seated on the throne said, I'm making everything new. There are few things in all the world where we line up with people that probably disagree with us on almost everything else as environmentalists. Is there a balance?
Of course, but the most conscientious lovers, carers of the earth as the steward and co-regents of a holy God are the followers of Jesus. How do we live that out? Let me give you a couple ideas just as we go. First, I think we just have to focus on the seven or eight verifiable issues. I understand we've just, you know, this is a top level view. I understand that we could dig down into global warming and we could look at issues here and issues in plastics. We can argue about stuff that I have very little or no control over until the cows come in. Or I can look at what I know for sure and I can act on that today and I can make a difference.
And when thousands and then millions of people who call themselves followers of Christ do that, it makes a big difference. And so some of the things that we would all say clean air, clean water, balanced land use, preserving the beauty, productivity and progress with constraints for conservation, eliminate waste, limit non-biodegradable plastics and recycle. I mean, okay, those are things we all agree on.
Those are things we can all really do. Write down these three words because the root of not doing those things, we can intellectually say that or just sort of float by or let the culture tell us what to do. Maybe we should be on the cutting edge rather than responding to the culture of people who take the earth that God made way more seriously than we do, His children.
And so greed, ignorance and carelessness are why all of us are not more conscious of taking care of God's earth the way He wants us to. It's greed. I want convenience. I want to consume. I want it now. I want it fast.
I want it packaged. Ignorance. How many people, you don't have to raise your hand but it would be nice if you did, how many people have heard a message on the environment in your lifetime in church?
Wow, 15 hands out of a thousand. So a part of it, we don't know. And then finally, it's just carelessness. I mean, it's just careless.
We just don't think about it. Let me give you some practical steps. I call them the four E's of just sort of getting started.
The first E is explore. And I mentioned this but I really mean this. Get outside, go see the redwoods, go sit in front of the ocean. Just take a walk without an electronic device. Put a lawn chair out and stare at the sky for 15 minutes without interruption and just stare at the sky on a clear night.
Second, educate. Learn about nature. I mean, it's fascinating. All the different stuff we're putting in our mind. Read an article about whales and about birds and watching the Discovery Channel. I mean, just do some stuff where you think and read it saying, what does this tell me about what God's like? Explore, educate, and then engage.
Recycle, conserve. Just from this passage, I have a habit when I shave and the water's running and you just on and off, on and off, on and off. And there's something about kind of hearing that water that's sort of therapeutic. So the confession of my public sin before all of you is for the last 30 or 40 years or so, I have been, I turn the water on and I do this and it just runs. Then I rinse and it runs and it rinse. And you know, as I've studied this, I thought, you know what, Chip? That's wasteful, that's ignorant, and that is you being a consumer and insensitive to what God has provided for you.
And after all that, it's also stupid. Like it takes, okay, here's the energy. Like last two days I'm practicing. I'm getting it down. What do you, what could you do? What do your kids think about this?
And then finally, after you engage, let me encourage you to empower. I think we need to jump on beautiful day. And for some of you that are a little bit more, go to Earth Day. Go hang out with people that maybe you think they're a little over the top and say, I'm here on Earth Day too. I want to help preserve that world. Not because it's my mother, not because it's God.
Guess what? This is my Father's world. I'd like to help you out on this. What can I learn from you? What would happen if we were open and embraced? Is there going to be balance and disagreements?
Absolutely. But what would happen if the most environmentally sensitive people on the face of the earth were followers of Jesus? I think a lot of people might open their ears to more than just the environment, but maybe about a God who cares about them.
You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And the message you just heard, The Church and the Environment, is from our series, Caring Enough to Confront. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute.
In the past, chips relied on lighthouses to help them navigate dangerous conditions and avoid wrecking on rocky shorelines. In this timely series, we'll understand why God's Word remains the most relevant and accurate guide Christians have in this morally dark world. Hear how the Bible confronts the most controversial topics of our day and calls believers to engage society with grace and love while standing firm on the truth.
You're not going to want to miss a single program. Also, throughout this series, Chip and our guest teachers mention many resources to educate you about what's happening in our world and prepare you to respond in a Christ-like manner. We've gathered all of these resources together for you, so check out the entire list right now at livingontheedge.org.
Again, that's livingontheedge.org. Chip's back with me in studio now. And Chip, people don't have to listen to you for very long to learn that you love basketball. You played in high school and college, then around the world.
Take a minute if you wouldn't explain for us the key lesson you learned through those experiences and how it applies to the work Living on the Edge is doing. Well, Dave, you're right. I'm a basketball junkie. My kids love basketball. The greatest experiences apart from Jesus I've ever had in my life is being on a team.
And I was a point guard, so getting the ball to the big guys or just filling your role. And when it all fits together, it's almost like ballet. It's so beautiful. Big people do what big people do, and small people like me do what we can do. And there's camaraderie. And then you produce something that's so much bigger and better than all of you. And of course, that's what the Bible teaches in Romans 12 is that we are one body and individually members of one another. And people probably don't know that of the millions of people that listen and benefit from Living on the Edge, I think I did the math about 1.5% actually financially support the ministry.
Think of that, 1.5% of all those people. And so we know we're ministering to and benefiting many, and of course, there's some people that can't afford to. But what I'd like to say is if we've ministered to you, if you listen to a podcast, a stream, a small group, a daily discipleship, would you partner with us? And it doesn't have to be a lot, just whatever God leads you. But if thousands upon thousands of people would give a little, man, could we do a lot more.
Bring honor to God, make disciples, see marriages restored, kids grow up in good homes, and Christians live like Christians. Would you pray and then go to our website livingontheedge.org and give whatever God directs you to give? And let me say in advance, thanks for joining the team.
Thanks, Chip. If partnering with Living on the Edge is an idea that makes sense to you, we'd love to have you join us. We believe encouraging Christians to live like Christians can radically change the world we live in. To send a gift, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003.
Or go to livingontheedge.org. At Listeners, tap Donate. And thanks for taking the time to help others benefit from the work of this ministry. Well, here again is Chip with a quick word. As we close today's program, I just want to ask you three quick questions. And as you listen to them, I want you to ponder, what one thing could I do? I mean, I shared one little thing.
I've been doing it every morning since. It's not a big deal, but it reminds me to be very environmentally aware. Question number one is, how would you characterize your awareness and your involvement in environmental issues? Scale of one to ten.
Ten, you're really engaged. One, you have maybe almost never thought about it. Second question is, what new insight did you gain from God's Word from this message?
I mean, where did God speak to you and you had an aha moment? And then third, what one specific thing might you or your family or friends do to become a part of the solution? I want you to choose one specific thing that's going to make a difference on this planet and start doing it today, and then tell someone you did it.
Let's see if we can't get a little movement started. Great challenge, Chip. Before we go, I want to remind you that the Chip Ingram app is an easy way to share messages or complete series with others. So whenever you're encouraged by what you hear, I hope you'll pass it along to a friend or loved one who'd benefit from it. And be sure to tell them how it made a difference in your life. Well, from all of us here, I'm Dave Drouie, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us next time.
