Why John Piper Recycles
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, here's a question from Michael in St. Paul. He asks, "What is
00:00:09.980 | the Christians' responsibility to creation?" And I'll add another
00:00:14.000 | common question into this discussion. If the Apostle Peter says that this world
00:00:17.880 | is going to burn up, why should Christians care at all about creation today?
00:00:20.680 | I like the question, and I've been tempted more than once, and several
00:00:27.960 | people have asked me to write a short book on creation care. Maybe I'll do it
00:00:32.240 | someday, but here's what I would say in essence. There are different approaches
00:00:39.200 | for justifying serious concern and care for creation and not treating it as trash
00:00:46.560 | and doing things with it and for it that make it what God wants it to be. And one
00:00:55.280 | is to approach Genesis 1, where we're created to be fruitful and multiply
00:01:05.200 | and fill the earth and subdue it and bring it under dominion. So the whole
00:01:10.880 | theology of dominion--man has dominion over the earth, and that would mean he's
00:01:17.360 | a steward of it. He should govern it and control it and use it for good
00:01:24.520 | purposes. And so God's given him a responsibility right in the very
00:01:27.960 | beginning of the Bible not to misuse, but to care for. A second approach would be
00:01:36.000 | that God delights in the earth. He made nature, and you've got these Psalms like
00:01:41.520 | Psalm 104, where he--you made Leviathan to play in the ocean. It's as if God
00:01:49.040 | simply delighted in the beauty of creation and all of its infinite variety
00:01:57.600 | and wisdom you have made them all. And if God has created it in beauty and delights
00:02:03.000 | in it, who are we not to delight in it and not to care for it? And that's
00:02:09.160 | the second way. The third way is the way I function. All those are valid, but
00:02:15.560 | they don't answer the essential bottom-line question for me. If you ask
00:02:19.200 | me, "Why do you recycle?" Which we do. "Why do you want a smaller carbon footprint?"
00:02:25.160 | Which we do. "Why do you buy a non-gas guzzling car? Why do you make little
00:02:31.240 | efforts to try to be active in creation care?" And the answer is, "Love
00:02:39.640 | your neighbor as yourself." The person who says, quoting Peter, "This is all gonna
00:02:49.640 | burn up, so why should we care for it?" It's like a person who says, "My house is
00:02:52.600 | gonna burn down in 30 years, so I'm not gonna paint it tomorrow." I mean, it's not
00:02:56.480 | loving towards your kids. If you'd like your kids to have this house, or if you're
00:03:00.440 | gonna sell the house and give some money to the church, to your kids, or whatever,
00:03:04.440 | you don't let the final destruction of your house someday keep you
00:03:11.920 | from taking care of it now so that you can enjoy it, and they can enjoy it, or
00:03:16.080 | you could sell it for a good price and give the money to a good cause. That's
00:03:19.600 | just nonsense. And so it is with the world. I think it's better to emphasize
00:03:25.840 | not that the world's going to be burned up, but the world's going to be remade. I
00:03:29.600 | think that passage in 2 Peter does not mean burning to destruction, but
00:03:33.880 | burning in refinement, and that the new heavens and the new earth are in
00:03:39.400 | continuity with this heaven and this earth, and that we will know our precious
00:03:45.720 | planet in the new heavens and the new earth. But see, that kind of argument for
00:03:50.120 | why we should take care of it just doesn't cut it with most people, and
00:03:53.080 | doesn't with me either. What really cuts it with me is, do you love people? Do you
00:03:57.760 | love the people that are going to drink the water that you're pouring the
00:04:01.040 | garbage into the river of? Do you love the people that are going to not have...
00:04:07.360 | I'm thinking of Kenya right now, and we have good friends who are in creation
00:04:12.480 | care in Kenya, and they bemoan the deforestation and the slash-and-burn
00:04:16.960 | approach towards farming that is ruining all kinds of futures for people. It's a
00:04:24.120 | beautiful land. It would work if they could learn how to manage the farming so
00:04:29.720 | that the land is not destroyed for the coming generations. That's just pure love
00:04:34.760 | your neighbor as you love yourself. How big of a tragedy is it for someone to
00:04:39.640 | care for creation, to protect wildlife, to protect a forest, but not to see the
00:04:43.280 | beauty of God in that creation? I mean, how big of a tragedy is that, to seek to
00:04:47.520 | care for creation but not to see the divine beauty through it? For them
00:04:51.400 | personally, it's an infinite tragedy, because if you don't know God, you lose
00:04:57.000 | everything. For the world, God will turn that for good. I mean, if they preserve
00:05:02.160 | parks, and if they preserve clean water, and if they preserve natural habitats,
00:05:06.800 | many people are going to benefit the way, hopefully, they ought to benefit. But
00:05:12.200 | for the person who is engaged in that, or any other good deed for that matter,
00:05:17.480 | without doing it for Christ's sake, is a great tragedy, because God made us to do
00:05:24.520 | everything we do for his glory, and in dependence on his power, and in love for
00:05:29.600 | his Son, and when we try to do right things without any dependence on Christ
00:05:35.000 | or for Christ's glory, we are contradicting the very reason for which
00:05:39.760 | we're made. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:05:43.440 | If you have a question for Pastor John, please send it to us via email at
00:05:46.840 | askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Please include your first name and your hometown.
00:05:50.520 | You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at
00:05:53.440 | desiringgod.org. I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.
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