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INTRODUCTION:
This morning we’re beginning a new series in our church through the opening chapters of the book of Genesis.
The title of the series is “In the Beginning.”
It’s an interesting thought experiment when you try and trace back to the “beginning” of a thing.
For example, this February will be 10 years that I’ve been the senior pastor at Broadview Baptist Church.
What was the beginning?
Was is the discussion between me and a mentor about them seeing God’s call on my life to pastor?
Maybe it was the day I surrendered my life to Jesus and made him Lord?
Or maybe the days of my parents teaching me Scriptural truth about my sin and my need for God’s grace found in the Gospel.
This coming July, Broadview will be 64 years old as a church.
What was the beginning?
It was a small group of people from Temple Baptist Church who praying in cottage prayer meetings wresting with God’s vision to plant a church on the southern edge of Abilene.
Audra and I will be 11 years married this coming Saturday.
What was the beginning?
Was it a nerdy facebook message followed by a coffee dates that ended up in Roby.
I knew after that date I could be myself around Audra in ways that were life-giving and free.
Or maybe it was the conversations between me and Denise Guidera (an insistent woman who just wouldn’t leave me alone about trying to get me to ask her out.)
Or maybe it was the wise instruction I received as a child about what to look for in a spouse and how you want someone beautiful on the inside and the outside.
The God of Nature
Anything that ever BEGINS to exist has a cause or point or origin.
Our universe began to exist.
So our universe must have a cause or point of origin.
Romans 1:20 and Psalm 19:1 both assert that the characteristics of this created realm point back to a creator.
We can reason from creation back to God using philosophy, cosmology, teleology, morality, ontology and other academic disciplines.
Those intellectual pursuits are good and helpful.
They present a creator that is spaceless, timeless, immaterial, incredibly powerful, intelligent and good.
That’s at least a partial description of what most monotheists mean when they say God.
The intelligent design found in nature points to an intelligent designer!
But those pursuits are also limited.
They don’t tell us WHY God created our universe.
The Answers in Genesis
That’s why we’re studying the book of Genesis.
Genesis 1 is unique in what it reveals about our origins.
It raises and answers questions that CANNOT be found in nature alone.
They must be revealed by the one who MADE nature: the God of Creation.
Genesis gives answers to some of life’s most important and foundational questions.
Questions such as:
Why IS there something rather than nothing?
Is there are God and what is he like?
How DID we get here?
What IS here and WHEN did it show up?
What is MAN?
What is WOMAN?
What is GOOD?
What is EVIL?
What is WRONG with our world and how did it break?
Is there any HOPE for salvation for our world or myself?
In every generation philosophers and great minds wrestle with these questions.
Every world religion aims to make sense of these questions.
Everything thinking person, regardless of their demographics eventually seeks an answer to these questions.
Why?
Because these questions are foundational to the way we live our lives.
Our answer to the questions raised in Genesis 1 fundamentally shape the way we look at and live in the world.
That’s why we’re doing this series.
We need the RIGHT answer to these FOUNDATIONAL questions so we can build lives marked by flourishing and joy.
Genesis 1 provides a roadmap to that destination.
In the following chapter we will not only see the WHO of creation but also the HOW and the WHY.
The Question of Who
So with that in mind, let’s read the first 25 verses of Genesis 1 and start this journey of understanding our origins.
Genesis 1:1 (ESV)
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 answers the question of WHO or WHAT created our universe: God.
According to Genesis 1:1 the universe is not eternal.
The big bag (whatever you think of that) was not random, unexplainable or spontaneous.
It was God.
The big bang had a big banger and his name is Elohim.
(This is actually the plural form of the Hebrew word for God.
Some think it’s a “majestic plural” others see it as a reference to the Trinity.)
Notice how the Bible assumes the existence of God right out of the gate.
It spends NO TIME proving God’s existence or explaining his eternal nature.
It just begins making sense of our creation in light of those truths.
God has always been and he is the creator of all that is.
The always God created all that is.
You might think of verse 1 as a summary statement of the entire creation account.
It has two book ends: heavens and earth.
"heavens” = everything that is UP THERE.
“earth” = everything that is DOWN HERE.”
That pretty much sums it up.
God existed eternally at every point leading up TO the creation and God is the source or originator of everything IN creation.
The Always God
Verse 2 of Genesis 1 take the summary statement and begins to tell “the rest of the story.”
Genesis 1:2 (ESV)
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
When you read the word “earth” in verse 2 what’s the first thing that comes to your mind?
You probably think a “globe” right?
Well that’s not what the original author would have thought.
The ability to see our earth from outer space wasn’t around back then.
Moses was divinely inspired but he wasn’t a robot.
God used his personality, cultural context and frame of reference to shape these Scriptural truths.
From Moses’ perspective, the “earth” (אָ֗רֶץ) was basically the ground.
Dirt.
Physical material.
Takes Nothing & Turns It Into Something
Notice that this “earth” was “without form and void.”
In the original Hebrew these two words rhyme (one reason I think Genesis 1 is a creation song/poem)
“Without form” = (תֹ֙הוּ֙) tohu formless, shapeless, wild, meaningless,
“void” = (בֹ֔הוּ) bohu emptiness, chaos, wasteland, futile
I like how one translation puts it.
“The earth was wild and waste.”
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