Thank you for that. We are looking at, in the 1689 Confession of Faith, we're looking at the doctrine of creation. Creation is, as theologians have studied it and categorized it, is the second work of God, the works of God or the work of decree. And we've looked at decree, that God has purposed and planned and decreed whatsoever to come to pass. And then his second work is the work of creation. His third work is the work of providence. His fourth work is the work of redemption. And so those are the works of God. They are all related. They all flow one from another. Now often when we study the doctrine of creation, we kind of study it in this way, that God created the world. He created it whatever he desired to do. He is a creative being. Some theologians even said that there was a mandate in him to create. I don't agree with that. I think he most willingly created out of his wisdom and out of his purpose and out of his plans. And that here is creation. Sometimes we talk about creation in the sense of a mechanical way, that it's here, it's created, that really creation is something God did only related to us in the sense that we are now participating in creation. And so many, I would think, would divorce it from from the, you know, the work of redemption because, you know, it's only tangent to it. It is just, I mean, obviously we had to be alive and had to be in his creation in order to be saved. But when we study the scripture, when we look at it most clearly, we see that they all relate, they all flow one from another. And we learn things about what we are in Christ, that we have been chosen as the scripture teaches us, that we've been chosen before the foundation of the world. Now what's interesting, why would that, why would that need to be said? What is that about? What is this, this connection of our being chosen and the foundation of the world, or before the foundation of the world. Well, some people would say, well, it just shows you in sequence, you know, we're not an afterthought, we're a forethought, and that surely is true. But why connect the two? Why are these two connected before the foundation of the world? And when we hear about Christ For example, the text I'm using is John 1. In the beginning was the word. Now we must be very careful not to accept this as, and I was listening to somebody just the other day and I agreed with much of what this man said, but ultimately he said, well, it is the word, it is this principle, it's this, and of course I got that from Greek thought. We do not get the word of God from Greek thought. We don't get our understanding of the word of God from Greek thought. We get it from biblical thought. Not even Hebrew. The reason the Hebrews know it is because God revealed it. We get it from God, you see. And so this word, why word? I mean, don't you think, I mean, do you remember the first time you read this? I remember the first time, I'm not sure if it dawned on me when I read it, but I remember sitting as a child in the church, and I guess it must have been around Christmas or something, I don't know, but I heard this magnificent verse, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Word. Did that surprise you when you read it? When you heard it? What's this word? You see, I would think in the beginning was the Son of God. Or in the beginning was Christ. In the beginning was Jesus. I mean, this surely reflects it. I mean, if you know anything about the Bible, when you read John chapter one, verse one, it surely brings you back to Genesis 1.1. In the beginning, God created, but here in the beginning was the Word. The Word. Why is Christ called the Word? And what is the relationship of the Word to Christ? Well, immediately, if you give it any kind of depth of thinking, I've never heard a lot of sermons about this, But if you give it any kind of depth of thinking, you remember how was the world created. It was created by a word, a word. And now we read was the word, not a word. but the word, and the word was with God. And literally in the Greek, and God was the word. The same was in the beginning with God. Now, John, when you read the writings of John, sometimes the criticism of humanist thinking and humanist scholars, they would say, well, John's repetitive. Why is the word of God repetitive? There's only 1189 chapters, you see. Why is the word repetitive? Why are these scriptures repetitive? In fact, why am I being repetitive? Obviously, this is the purpose and plan of God for us to understand and know these things. And so he says them over and over again. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. But he'd already said that, but he says it again. Don't miss this point. Here's the beginning. If you go back to the beginning, what do you find? God. If you go back to the beginning, what do you find? The Word. If you go back to the beginning, what do you find? The Spirit. And all things were made by Him. referring specifically here to the Word. The Word that was in the beginning, the Word that was with God, the Word that was God, all things were made by Him, and that's true. It was the spoken Word of God, and that's all the works of God as we see them. A little less clear in the work of decree, but surely in these other works you see how God organized himself, you see. God organized himself in this way. God the Father purposed it. God the Son accomplished it. And God the Spirit was the agent that indeed was used to get it accomplished. So here is the word. Here is the command. Here is the person of Christ. And when John begins to talk about Christ, see that's what, it's a gospel, right? Now John is different than John is different than the other Gospels. The other Gospels are what we call synoptic. I mean, that's just surely a theological term, a theological term that has been placed upon it so we could understand it. But what is a synopsis? Well, it is a summary, right? So Matthew, Mark, and Luke are summaries of the life of Christ. They're synoptic. But John's gospel is not called synoptic. John's gospel is in what we call the Johannine literature. Different. The cadence is different. The beginning is different. The themes are different. Indeed, there's theology, obviously, all through the gospel, but John is more theological than historical. And yet, it is historical. But John is being moved of God to give us an understanding of, not just to bluntly say this is what happened, but to describe to us what is happening. And so he begins in eternity. Matthew, Mark, and Luke begin with the story of Christ, begins with, and Mark doesn't hardly say anything, But Matthew and Luke begins with Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and Zachariah. John begins with the Word. And when he's teaching us about Christ, he attaches Christ to this creation, or the creation to Christ. It is Christ who's doing this, you see. Did that surprise you the first time you heard it? That it was actually Christ doing the creating? The one who indeed became incarnate is the one who created? He didn't come to existence in Bethlehem. He just came to manifestation in Bethlehem. Incarnated, that is, became flesh. And it goes, it continues. What a magnificent, magnificent 14 verses at the beginning of this gospel. But the point I want to make is that it is creation, the doctrine of creation. And here's the paragraph. So it is chapter four, first paragraph. of the 1689. In the beginning, it pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all three Trinitarian, you see. Look, you're not Christian if you're not Trinitarian. I realize that there's some Christian-esque churches that deny the Trinity. Well, whatever they are, they are not Christian. And I'm not saying that they don't act like Christians or they're not trying to live like Christians or that they get none of this right, but they are wrong at the heart. If you get the person of God wrong, nothing else can be right. And what you actually do, and that's why these people are Pelagian in their thinking, Arminian in their thinking. because they surely can't be reformed in their thinking, they can't be Calvinistic in their thinking, because they deny the very heart of these things, you see. It is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, you see, a Trinitarian salvation. Our salvation is Trinitarian, the only proper way to understand it, that God the Father loved you, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, Mono Ganes is uniquely born son, you see. Here is a contradistinction between the father and the son, you see. The father, well, for God so loved the world that he gave his son, well, the son has to be given by the father. God is the father, you see. So the Father was loved us. Sometimes you listen to some people try to preach the gospel and it's like God hated us and Christ was the only one that loved us and came and redeemed us. But no, it is God the Father who loved us and who gave us to Christ before the world was. And we could jump to John chapter 17. What a beautiful picture there. That Jesus Christ is now praying. He's praying to his Father. The Son is now praying to his Father. And He remembers the glory that He had. He remembers with the Father. He remembers eternity. He remembers before He was incarnated. And He spake these words, lifting up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hours come glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I've glorified thee, on the earth, I finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world." What? Nothing. See, God is not a part of this universe, though he is revealed Through His universe, His image is stamped on everything and most clearly stamped on us. But before the creation, He was. And in dealing with us, with the Savior, and we needed a Savior. He dealt with us in Christ before the world was. There is an elect. I realize a lot of people, a lot of people don't really wanna believe that. And in fact, one of the things that they argue the most about my preaching, when people are critical of my preaching, one of the things they're most critical of is this concept of the elect that they, I mean, I had people say, well, I don't, I don't really know about, I don't really know about this stuff election. I said, well, it's in the Bible and someone has been, God has sent someone here to teach you, you see. And yet they didn't want to hear it. What were they believing? What gospel did they have? what gospel was being preached to them. But here it is. It's very clear. Just do any kind of, I'll give you an exercise. Just open the Bible to any page and read, and you'll come across it. And maybe in the very page you're on, but surely in a few verses or chapters, if you read, in control. It has to be, because let me tell you this, God has to be in control of everything or he can be in control of nothing. You can't have it both ways. If God is not in control of everything, he cannot make these promises. All things work together for good to them that love God who are the called according to his purpose. How can he make that promise if he didn't control everything? Everything lines up under the sovereign hand of Almighty God. It is all doing exactly what he has purposed it to do. Hard to understand? Right. Hard to believe? No question. In fact, it's impossible until the Lord reveals it. Then you believe it, because you can believe nothing but it. Here is creation. I don't know if some of you read my devotions every day, but some of you may read my devotions. I think last week, they said, well, you wrote them, don't you? I write so many things and talk about so many things and do so many things, sometimes I'm Sometime I have to go check myself. But I believe I wrote an article about time. You know what, in fact, I'm not sure I wrote that. I think it was the radio spot. And I was talking about time. Time is the creation of God. Time's just not the passing by of your existence, but it's the creation of God. And we are in this time. And let me tell you this, this time could not happen without you being in it. "He said, well, that's kind of a little boastful, isn't it? I mean, you've spent most of the time I've heard you preach saying man's nothing, denigrating man, saying man, that there's nothing in man that is good and holy and righteous, that we need God, that's true. But time today couldn't exist without you in it. Because you're in it. And creation, creation obviously is an element of time. It's in relationship to time. In fact, we live in time. We count down our time. We are moving toward, I was thinking the other day, I'm 70 years old, probably don't have 30 more years. Maybe, doubt it, right? I won't have 30 more years. I don't think so. I may not have 10 more years. I remember listening, well, he died. I said, well, how old was he? He was 80. Oh, well, he lived a good life. Well, I've got 10 years to 80 and I'm thinking, wait a minute, maybe I need to rethink that. We're rushing to the end of this thing. Every night when I lay down, I said, I cannot believe where the day went. Every morning when I get up, well, here's another day. Is this gonna be the last day? How many more of these days will I have? How many more Christmases will I celebrate? How many more Sabbaths will I be in this earth? We're rushing to the end and we all know it. We don't think about it. We don't dwell on it. We try to stay away from morbidity, morbid thoughts, and of course morbidity comes simply from the Latin for death. Here we are. No biological accident. No a purposed person. Not only purpose in what you're doing, but purpose for you to be here. Now we realize that in creation, we're not robots. I mean, we do think, we do act, we do make decisions. Sometimes we make good decisions. Sometimes we make poor decisions. But all these decisions, good or poor, are working to one thing, to one end, and that is the purpose of God. And we must give ourselves to all of this completely, right? We must never, never deny the Word of God and deny that our actions and our obedience and our disobedience and our righteous obedience to God and our sinful disobedience before God That's our fault. That's our responsibility. That's what we have to own. That's what we have to maintain. And if you consider the sovereignty of God, and these things that we're talking about, which are high things, far above us, you see, when we start talking about the essence of creation, then we have to talk about the essence of your life, because you are in creation, and creation could have never been without you being. But if you come to the conclusion that that means it doesn't matter what you do, and it doesn't matter what you say, and it doesn't matter how you live, and it doesn't matter what, I mean, whatever, you're exercising, you're eating, or whatever it may be, that that won't matter because God will be, will do whatever, you have misunderstood it. It is God taking our uncoerced, unviolated, volitional acts, acts of our will, to accomplish his purposes and we must take that very seriously. That's why we're not play acting when we're praying. We acknowledge the sovereignty of God and that there's not anything that could be without him and not anything we can do that you are in us both living, willing and doing of your good pleasure and yet I have a responsibility As the Word of God teaches, the commandments of God teaches me to live in this world to the glory of God and to do those things which must be done. I've heard people say, you see, for example, had I not taken the pastorate of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi, if I'd said, no, I'm not coming there, you know what? My daughter would have never met her husband. But I've heard people say, well, yeah, they would have met somewhere. No, they would not. There would have been no way they could have met unless I obeyed the call of God. Not the call that I said God gave me, but the call that Bethlehem Baptist Church and December of 1998 told me. I never told Bethlehem I should be their pastor. Bethlehem told me I should be their pastor. And that they were led of God. Well, were they lying? Were they wrong? Did they misunderstand? Were they pretending? They really didn't think that I should be here as their pastor? They were just playing the game, right? Well, I don't know. But I never once came in here and said, look, God's called me to be your pastor. No, you told me God's calling you to be our pastor. I agreed, here I am. Better or worse, richer or poorer, here I am, your pastor, today. No accident, standing. And I'll be honest with you, the last 5 1⁄2 years of my life, here as your pastor, has not been delightful. I'll just be honest. There's been a lot of burden in those 5 1⁄2 years. But I can tell you also, you know what it's been? It's been a lot of joy. I wouldn't have met some of you had I not been, well, I mean, I'd have met none of you if I'd not been the pastor. But in these last 5 1⁄2 years, If I had not been there, I wouldn't have met you. Some of the most delightful people I've ever met in my life. In the five and a half years, there would be some things that would not have been done, because I'm telling you, Saddaq and Faisa would be dead today. if he had not walked up to me on that parking lot and started this fantastic, and I don't mean fantastic in the sense that it's been super wonderful, but fantastic in the sense that it, who would believe it? Who would believe this? You're created. Now, if God has an elect, and he does, before the world was created, and he did, then he has to make a place for them to be, right? Now, I don't know much. I've read a lot. I've seen a lot. I've heard a lot. But from what I have heard, the world, as big as it is, it's a massive place. I've been in Africa. Massive place. United States of America, massive. We've driven almost, not quite all across it, but how many years did we leave Laurel, Mississippi and drive almost to the Pacific Ocean? And down into Mexico, someone said, well, couldn't you got a place? Yeah, we could have gone over to Mexico and Brownsville, Texas. We could have gotten there a lot quicker. But that wasn't the plan. When I came here, that was not where God had put us through Bob Davidson and through Bill Pachmeyer. It's massive. And yet in the scheme of the universe, it is less than a grain of sand. Go to the beach and look at the sand. Pick up one little grain. That's what the earth is. And no matter what we have found out there, And I will admit, we hadn't even gotten off the back porch when it comes to space, right? They blasted a rocket ship away from here, probably before some of you were even born. Still going. What has it found? Vast emptiness and no life. Not sentient life, just here. just the earth, this grain of sand created for you to have a place. You, not all of us, surely all of us, but you. Have you looked at creation in such a way? Have you considered the doctrine of creation in such a way? Do you realize that creation is a part of your redemption? None of this could happen if the Word in the beginning had not made this. You. We just think it was created and we got in on it. No. It was created for a man named George. And Jim. And Sydney. And John. And Amy. Kayla, I guess I ought to go through and name everybody right now for you. He created the world so you could live, so he could redeem. Hallelujah. What a Savior. How much did He create? Lavishly. For one speck of sand. How did He redeem you? Lavishly. Not by the sacrifice of bulls and goats, but by the sacrifice of his son. Let's pray.