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Genesis chapter one and verse
one. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. What is Genesis chapter one about? If you were to gather together,
let's say 100 Bible literate folks and ask them, hey, what
is the first chapter of the Bible about? I would suspect, what, 95, 96,
97, 98 of them, somewhere in that range,
would say creation. That's what the first chapter
of the Bible is about. It is the creation story. That's
how we know Genesis chapter one. And yes, of course it's the creation
story. That would be a very good answer
to the question of what the first chapter of the Bible is about.
However, as we begin our consideration of this book and our entrance
into Genesis here in chapter one, the focus of this first
sermon, is that there is a fact and a
reality about Genesis 1 so obvious that we miss it so very often. That Genesis 1 is not most fundamentally
about the creation of the universe. It is most fundamentally about
the God who is doing the creating. Yes, of course, God wonderfully
unfolds for us in this chapter, the creation of the universe.
But most fundamentally, this chapter is about the God who
is the creator. For example, there are 31 verses
in Genesis 1, and God is mentioned by name no less than 32 times
in those 31 verses. The beginning of the Bible is
a revelation from God about how the universe came into existence. But something even yet deeper
is being said. And that is that to truly understand
the creation in which we live and of which we are a part, we
must understand its creator. Yes, this chapter reveals to
us how the universe came into being, but its most important feature
at the heart of Everything that this chapter has for us is a
revelation about the character of the God who has, by the word
of his power, brought all things into existence. Now, remember that Moses is the
author of Genesis. We'll talk a little more about
the significance of that later in the sermon, and it will come
up throughout this sermon series here and there. But for now,
remember with me that in Moses' day, everyone believed that the
world was created by divine power. If you were to ask the question,
well, is there something radical and revolutionary about what
Genesis 1 unfolds? In Moses' day, that feature was
not the assertion that the world was created by divine power,
because that was a commonly held belief. The radical and revolutionary
aspect of Genesis 1 is the character and the nature
of the God who is doing the creating. And as we begin the book of Genesis,
I want to submit to you that this is still the case. 3,500 years later, from the point at
which God inspired Moses to write this book. The radical and revolutionary
aspect of this chapter is still the revelation of the character
and the nature and the being of this glorious creator, God. with all of our modern confusion
about origins, with all of modern America's great spiritual confusion
in our own day and age. One day we're talking about almighty
science, and then the next day we're going to the astrologist
and giving thanks to Mother Earth. On the one hand, claiming to
be materialistic atheists, but then on the other hand, passionately
yelling about karma when someone cuts us off on the freeway. The answer to our spiritual confusion
has not changed these three and a half thousand years from when
this book was first gifted to humanity by the inspiration of
the Spirit. What is the answer? in every
generation and in every age to the swirling confusion about
who we are and why we're here and what's the purpose and meaning
of it all. It's not just in knowing the
details that God reveals to us about how he created the universe.
It's about most fundamentally knowing him, And if you think to yourself,
well, believing in God, what's the big deal? I do that already.
Then you haven't yet listened to the power of the words that
are recorded for us right here at the very beginning of the
Bible. It is no small thing, it is no
easy thing to believe in this God. It is no small thing to
understand the character of the one who is revealed to us from
the very first words of his self-revelation, who purposes that we would not
just know something about his works, but through his works
to know him. This is our great need, not only
as a society, but also as the church as well. Because, brothers and sisters,
we do not confess Christianity as some regional parochial religion
bound by certain geography or certain language or certain ethnicity. We confess Christianity as the
worship of the one true and living God, the maker of heaven and
earth. Christianity is not about what
God adds to our existence to make life better for us. True religion is about the God
who is the source of our existence. the one in whom we live and move
and have our being. And that's the heart of the power
of the Bible's creation narrative. Not that it answers the questions
that we demand it to answer. Not that it serves for us to
simply twist it and bend it to say what we want it to say and
prove what we want it to prove. but that it brings us before
the face of the living God, the God who created us, the God before
whom we will give an account, that in this book and through
it, through this chapter in which, yes, he unfolds the manner in
which he created all things, but that it is him speaking to
us, revealing his character, and calling us along with the
whole universe to worship Him and to praise Him and to serve
Him. Now we're looking ever so briefly
this morning, just at the first verse of Genesis 1. And to begin
seeing all of this, as we begin thinking together about Genesis
1, hear from the very first verse, we're going to simply walk through
this verse together now and look at each important segment here
of these powerful words that God purposed would be the very
first words that we would encounter upon opening the Holy Scriptures.
And so we begin, in the beginning, God. Now for us, in our experience
as human beings, in time and in history, when we talk about
the beginning of something, what comes before the beginning? Well,
nothing, right? That's what makes it the beginning.
There's no before the beginning because it is that point in time
when something wasn't and then when something was. You know, the beginning marks
the point at which there was no story, and now there is a
story. Simple enough, right? Except, what does this verse
reveal to us? It reveals to us that in this
beginning, there is something before the
beginning. And that something is God. that
yes, the universe as we know it has a beginning. There is a wasn't and then a
was. But it reveals to us that it
is not so with God. That before time began to exist,
we can't even speak about it without using the language of
time, but for God, the language fails us. Before this beginning,
God was. God has no beginning. In the
very first verse of the Bible, we are immediately confronted
with a God whose infinite being and existence shatters any notion
we may have had of fully or comprehensively understanding him. How can we, as finite and time-bound
creatures, fully comprehend the one who is outside of time? Who exists with a perfection
and a fullness that we cannot fully take in. And yet also, a God who lovingly
condescends to make himself known to us, you see. He reveals himself
as beyond our comprehension, and yet he reveals himself as
coming to us graciously and in love that we might know him.
Even exhaust the depths of his being and wisdom. In the beginning, God. And now in the beginning, God
created. We add this one word so rich
and pregnant with meaning, created. In the Hebrew, bara. And I promise not to be quoting
too much of the Hebrew. I only bring it up now because
it is a wonderfully unique word in the Hebrew Bible. You can
search through the Hebrew Bible and you know what you won't find?
You won't find human beings bara-ing. if you will, you won't even find
angels doing it. It's a verb of action that God
has claimed for himself. It's exclusively in the Hebrew
Bible used for God and his activity. And it's used to describe many
different works of God, but always and in every occasion, emphasizing
his uniqueness, his singularity, his sovereignty over that which
he creates. And it's in this word, among
other things, that the idea of what we call creation ex nihilo
comes from. If you've heard that phrase before,
ex nihilo is simply the Latin that means out of nothing, creation
out of nothing. That's what it means for God
to bara, It's a creative activity unique to God. And you'll sometimes
hear people comparing human creativity to God's creativity. That we create because we are
made in the image of the God who is the creator. And there
is absolutely something to that. Important things that we are
to carefully consider with wonder and with thankfulness. We do create as human beings
because we are made in the image of the creator. However, the
comparison can be overemphasized, such that it almost brings human
creative activity up to some equality with God's creative
activity. Or maybe it's just a scale, you
know, where God's creative activity is up here, just kind of down
a couple notches. We create as human beings, we
do not bara. In other words, how do we create?
We create by manipulating already existing media. We take things
from within the creation and we rearrange them and we form
them and we shape them according to the creative faculty that
we have as divine image bearers. We do not bara, we do not create
things out of nothing. That belongs to God alone. If you look through, if you survey
the many and the various ancient cosmologies, and a cosmology
is just a theory about the origin of the universe, many of those
ancient theories You have a deity figure who creates by simply
manipulating or rearranging preexistence stuff, preexistent matter. You know, the stuff of creation
has always been there and then one god or multiple gods will
come and act upon it and bring about the world as we now know
it. In other words, how do The false
gods of the nations create. They create in the likeness of
the ones who have forged them in their own sinful imaginations.
They are made like man, simply manipulating preexistent material. But not so the true and living
God, not so the maker of heaven and earth. Our God does not play
with primordial Play-Doh. He doesn't just shape a preexistent
matter, an eternal universe into what we now see. He creates out
of nothing. And it is this beautiful and
extraordinary reality that the Bible returns to again and again
to meditate on with wonder and with thanksgiving and with joy. Isaiah chapter 45. I am the Lord, and there is no
other. Besides me, there is no God.
I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know
from the rising of the sun and from the west that there is none
beside me. I am the Lord, and there is no
other. I form light and barra darkness. I form light and create darkness. I make well-being and create
calamity. I am the Lord. who does all these
things. Yes, one verb, but a rich and
a powerful one that establishes the Lord as the Lord, who alone
creates out of nothing, as a display to the works of his hands of
his absolute sovereignty and his surpassing glory. In the beginning, God created,
and now, And finally, in the beginning, God created the heavens
and the earth. Now we read this final phrase,
the heavens and the earth, and we immediately think, oh, well,
Moses is talking about the stuff up there and the stuff down here.
It's not completely wrong, per se, but this is a literary device
that is the equivalent to saying everything. That's the purpose
of this last phrase here. In the beginning, God created
everything. God created the universe in its
vast totality. In other words, And this is actually quite, this
is just as profound and revolutionary as every single other part of
this verse, because what is it saying? It's saying to us, there
are only two categories of existence. There is God, who exists eternally,
of himself, independent of any need, And then there's the universe
that God created out of nothing of his good pleasure to display
his glory. That takes us back to the book
of Isaiah. We'll be returning to Isaiah with a certain amount
of frequency when we're in Genesis chapter one because of how Frequently,
Isaiah marvels at the power of the truths of God as creator,
how powerful they are for the church. Isaiah chapter 44 and verse 24. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth." One verse, brothers and sisters and
friends, one verse, and yet a utterly revolutionary unfolding and presentation of
the glory of the Creator God to us. Now, remember again, the
author of these words, Moses. When did Moses live? The kids know this because we
started the book of Exodus together this morning in Sunday school.
When did Moses live and therefore when were these words penned?
Well, it was after the Exodus, when the book of Genesis was
written. after that great salvation event
of the Old Testament when God, with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm, took his people out of bondage to slavery in Egypt, and brought
them through the Red Sea, and sustained them through the wilderness,
and at last brought the descendants of Abraham to the land that was
promised to them. in the covenant of grace. In
other words, the creation account comes to the people of God and
is given to the church and through the holy scriptures to the world
in the context of redemption. And that's important for us.
That yes, Genesis chapter one is God's revelation of how he
made the heavens and the earth, but it is written in the interest
of and for the purpose of redemption. And we'll see this throughout
the opening chapters of Genesis. The doctrine of origins, how
we came to be, where this universe came from, what it's for, the
doctrine of origins is a necessary prologue to the doctrine of salvation. Now, why is that the case? Well,
if we need, if we have sinned, if we have lost fellowship with
God, if we need to be reconciled to God, we must know who He is. We must know to whom we must
go in order to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. And it is, again, His character that is the primary focus of
Genesis 1, that we might know Him truly, that we might go to
Him, the one true and living God, and to be reconciled to
Him through the provision of salvation that He has given in
Christ His Son. The doctrine of origins is necessary
because in it, He displays Himself before us. He reveals who He
is, the maker of heaven and earth, the one and only Creator God
who alone is to be worshiped, who alone is to command the deepest
trust and devotion of the human heart. And you may be asking yourself
at this point, well, here's the table that we are about to come
to that we might commune with our Savior. How do we get from
creation to communion? If we're not careful, right,
they can seem like two things very, perhaps widely divergent
from one another. We're about to sit at the table
of our Lord. What can we bring with us from
this passage and from this sermon to this table that he has set
for us in the wilderness? Well, brothers and sisters, again,
to use the words of Isaiah, Your maker is your husband. The Lord
of hosts is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your
redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called. And as we will come to examine
this afternoon, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. God is the great reality. We do not exist by our own power.
We are not necessary. We could exist, we could not
exist. But not so God. He alone is the
eternally existent one. No beginning, no end. And yes,
this is beyond our ability to fully understand, but he has
come to us, you see. He has so loved the world that
in the presence of the eternal Son, He has come to us that we
might know Him even yet more fully and intimately. That yes, we do not understand
according to our finite boundaries what it means to have no beginning
or no end, but He comes to us in love to reveal Himself And
even those aspects of him, brothers and sisters, that we cannot fully
comprehend are still meant for our comfort and our strength
spiritually in this life. Do you ever struggle with the
love of God? Do you ever wonder, does he really
love me? Or maybe he loved me and he stopped loving me. Just a quote. that calls upon God's eternal
nature to help us understand his love for us. The best proof
that he will never cease to love us lies in that he never began. Now, let that one sit for a while. The best proof that he will never
cease to love us lies in that he never began. Do you know that
about God's love for you? There was never a time when He
did not love you. Are you trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ? Is He your hope and your Savior? There has never
been a time that God did not love you. Just as He had no beginning,
so His love for you had no beginning. And just as He has no end, His
love for you has no end. And what is the greatest display
of his love for us in time and in history? This is my body, which is for
you. Do this in remembrance of me.
This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often
as you drink it in remembrance of me. In other words, Church
of the Lord Jesus Christ, we bring all of this with us to
the table. every blessed word in all of
its power and its glory. For our maker is our husband. Let's pray together. Gracious heavenly Father, as
we have only ever so briefly started looking into the beauty
of Genesis chapter one, we pray for your blessing. And we pray, Father, that in
our consideration of this chapter and all those to follow, in meditation
on the creation story, may we, above all else, come to know
you more deeply. May these verses bring us before
the face of the living God that we might worship you, and love
you and serve you as you have made us to do, and as you have
redeemed us to do, through Christ your Son and through the power
of the Holy Spirit. Bless us now, Father, that we might know you, the one
true God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, whom you sent. We praise
you, Father, for your glory. We praise you, one true and living
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for you have created all things,
and by your will and good pleasure we exist. We pray these things
for Christ's sake and for his glory.
In the Beginning — God
Series Genesis
| Sermon ID | 101524435164296 |
| Duration | 31:19 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Language | English |
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