PERSPECTIVES: CREATOR/CREATION

Genesis 1

We have been studying and focusing on the heart of the triune God.

We talked about pursuing truth about who He is and breaking down lies and false teachings about who He is.

My prayer is that you would join me in constant study and understanding about who He is. My prayer is that our desire would be to never be content with what we know about God. That we would never feel like we have Him figured out. My prayer is that we, as a church, would be life long pursuers of the heart of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Keep searching. Keep praying that He would show Himself to you. Its honestly become my heart’s pursuit.

But the next direction I feel like the Lord is leading us down is to focus now on proper perspectives of who we are in comparison to God.

One of the goals for the year that we have been talking about is that we can not see ourselves properly until we see Him properly. If we were made in His image, what is His image.

A vital component of seeing ourselves properly is finding out what God thinks about us, not what we think of ourselves.

So, we are starting the next series called Perspectives. Seeing Him to be able to see who I am.

I want you to understand that this does not change the goal of doing all that you can to think about God. That is the goal of our minds and our thoughts. That will still be the goal.

However, we know from scripture and from experience that identity is one of the primary ways that the enemy attacks humans minds.

From the Garden and “Your will be like God” to today’s “You can be whatever you want to be”, identity is one of the enemy’s primary attacks.

Just the same as us attacking the lies and false ideas about who God is, we must also confront and resist the lies about who we are, since we live in a culture of lies about personal identity.

So, as we enter into this perspectives study, we are first going to look at God and then see ourselves in comparison to that.

Today’s message is entitled Perspectives: Creator/Creation

ALL WAS SPOKEN EXCEPT...

So, let us first fix our minds on the Creator.

Psalm 33:6 describes what we see in Genesis 1

Psalm 33:6 (ESV)

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,

and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

Day 1, God spoke and said “Let there be light.” and there was light.

Now, don’t separate this God with the heart of God that we have been studying. This is God, the Lord who is full of mercy and grace, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

This is the same God that through Jesus Christ, we can have a relationship with.

As we move through the days of creation, we see that He speaks and creates.

He separates the waters above and waters below.

He speaks and creates the separation between the waters on Earth and the land.

He creates vegetation, He creates the Sun, the moon and the stars. He creates the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, He speaks and created the animals of the land.

As we fix our minds on the Creator, we can learn some important things about our Him from these verses.

We see, in vs 2, that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. So, God is spiritual. He must be spiritual in order for Him to create the physical. So, He must exist outside of the physical world.

We also see on the first day, we see that He called the light day and the darkness night. Therefore, He created time. In order for Him to create time, He must exist outside of time.

We also see that He created the stars and the expanse. He created space. In order for that to happen, He must exist outside of space.

Here in the first few verses, we get to see very important facts about who the Creator is. He exist out side of time, space and matter.

Remember the visual that I gave you a couple of weeks ago, about how He is able to hold all things in the palm of His hand.

Stop and think with me)

We must think about how powerful, how huge, how vast our great Creator is. We must set our minds to the power that speaks and universes are created.

When we pray, we must remember who it is that we are talking to.

We must take time to go out into creation and set our minds to the vastness, and power of our God that created the sun, the moon and the stars while looking at the ants and cells on the back of a leaf and how the Creator thought about and spoke them into being.

Look at the creation that He spoke into creation and remember this, all of creation was spoken into being except when He created mankind.

Genesis 2:7 ESV

then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

That word “formed” is defined as a potter molding clay.

Mankind was not simply spoken into being which would have been incredible enough but the Creator, all powerful and vast God, reached down and personally molded mankind into His image. And God bent over and breathed His breath into his nostrils.

That is so much more personal!

Think about how intimate that is.

Think about the personal care that put into that process.

He chose to do it that way. He could have spoken but chose to form mankind like clay.

God’s Word says that He didn’t just do that for Adam and Eve!

You were personally formed by the hands of God!

Psalm 139:13–16 (ESV)

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

my soul knows it very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;

in your book were written, every one of them,

the days that were formed for me,

when as yet there was none of them.

Look at that! God personally knew you and formed you.

Have you ever looked at something knitted? Thousands and thousands of knots and ties, twist and rotations.

Have you ever studies the human body?

Millions upon millions of cells, systems and organs.

Not just physically not personality wise.

Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

Before God created you, He knew you. He knew your soul! He knew your personality. He knew who you would become. He knew the count of hairs on your head.

You are special to God! Each and every one of you. You are more than just a clump of cells. You are more than just what evolved out of a lake.

You are fashioned and molded by the creator God. He breathed His breath of life into your lungs!

I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I challenge you this week, get outside and look at creation and think about the vastness of vastness and detail of creation and our Creator but also stop and think about how He formed you and knitted you together. How you are special, unique to Him. Think about how you were intentional. How you were not created by accident but on purpose.

HELD TOGETHER BY GOD

Colossians 1:15–17 (ESV)

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

We see that God, through Jesus, created all things in heaven and on earth. Everything was created by Him.

But He also holds all things in creation together.

He is the reason that creation is continuing to do all that He planned it to do.

Think about this, if the earth spun slower, centrifugal force would be less and we would weight more and it would take a lot more energy to walk and move. The same in the other direction. The balance between centrifugal force and gravity has to be perfect.

If earth slowed in its rotation around the sun, we would be sucked into the sun. If we sped up, we would fly into space.

If earth was just a little closer to the sun we would all burn up and if we were slightly further, we would freeze.

We are moving at the exact speed, the exact distance, and the exact rotation for us to be alive.

And according to this verse, Jesus is the one holding it all into position. All of creation is being held together by Jesus.

Now the same goes for you and me!

Do me a favor, everyone with me, let’s take a deep breath together.

And another one.

Paul was addressing the men in Athens and telling them about God. He said,

Acts 17:24–25 ESV

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

(read slowly)

Every breath we take is a gift from God.

Every day that we are on this earth is from Him.

He holds your life together.

He sustains your life and days.

We do not know the days that we have left but we know that He holds them in His hands.

May we live each day grateful for life, breath and His goodness. Not taking any day for granted.

CREATED WITH INTENTIONALITY AND PURPOSE

As you look at creation, everything has a purpose. There is nothing in the world or in nature that exist to serve no purpose. There are ecosystems of symbiotic creatures, plants and insects that are dependent on each other to survive.

Just think about what the wolf population does for Yellowstone.

Just think about the mighty dug beetle!

Think about buzzards and vultures.

Think about ants and worms.

All throughout creation, God created each and everything on purpose and for a purpose. Everything was intentional.

So, why would we think that we would be any different??

Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Once again, God created you with His own hands and with more intimacy that the rest of creation. And if He gave them purposes. Why would He not give you purpose?

Isaiah 43:6–7 (ESV)

I will say to the north, Give up,

and to the south, Do not withhold;

bring my sons from afar

and my daughters from the end of the earth,

everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made.”

God formed you and made you for His glory! You are a walking, talking display of the glory of God.

Think about all that we have talked about today!

YOU, He personally formed you! He breathed His breath into your lung! How does that not display His glory?!

Every breath you take, He graciously gives it to you! How does that not display the glory of God?!

You have been called sons and daughters of God! How does that not display the glory of God?!

Phil Wickham has a song and the bridge says

Let my life be to You a symphony Singin' out "Holy, Holy" All my days, every single breath I breathe Singin' out "Holy, Holy"

We were made to praise and glorify God! We were created with the purpose of shining the light of His glory to the world.

The problem is we have been convinced that that is not enough us.

That that purpose is not great enough. That we are capable of much more than that and that praising and glorifying God is just not important enough. We need more.

Not that God needs more, but we need more in life to feel satisfied or complete.

And we have been convinced that if we don’t find that singular purpose, the specific calling that God has placed on our lives, we will live discontented, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled lives.

We seek our own fulfillment over our primary purpose. To worship and glorify our great God.

At the end of Saul’s life, he wrote a book called Ecclesiastes. This man had everything in life. One of the richest men to ever live. Blessed with the wisdom of God. Fulfilling his live’s purpose of being the God-chosen king of Israel.

And at the end of His life, he wrote a book talking about how all of it was meaningless and pointless compared to two things.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 ESV

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

He is saying, if you are looking for your purpose, for your duty. Fear God.

That is have a proper perspective of who He is and who you are in Him.

And keep His commands.

His Word is full of commands and instructions on how we should live our lives.

It is full of things that we have been instructed to do to worship and glorify God.

If you are sitting still doing nothing because you are searching for the one things God has called you to, may I suggest that you start with the multitude of commands that are already in His Word for you to do?

Francis Chan, “Sometimes people are paralyzed by fear of failure. They are so afraid that they might do the wrong thing that they do nothing. We need to learn to err of the side of action, because we tend to default to negligence. So many won’t do anything unless they hear a voice from heaven telling the precisely what to do. Why not default to action until you hear the voice from heaven telling you to wait? For example: Why not assume you should adopt kids unless you a voice telling you not to? Wouldn’t it seem more biblical since God has told us that true religion is care for the widows and orphans (James 1:27)?”

“One of the reasons we don’t err on the side of action is the harsh criticism we receive when we fail. People are quick to point out action that ends badly. But rarely recognize the sin of omission. We criticize the guy who fed too much sugar to starving children rather that criticizing the thousands who fed them nothing.”

Why not err of the side of action?

Do not sit and wait for specifics of your destiny! Get busy doing this things that He has already commanded us to do!

James 1:27 ESV

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

We as a church are feeding the widows and delivering food to their homes with RFD. Are you apart of that?

We as a church are partnering with the Wrap Closet and CPS to help the orphans and foster families in Giles County. Are you apart of that?

Matthew chapter 25 tells us that we should be giving clothes, food, drink and being welcoming to those who need these things. Are you apart of that?

Acts chapter 2 talks about a young church that were selling their possessions for those whoever has need.

Are you being obedient to these commands of the Lord?

We are in need of people to help with our teams here in church. We need help with the kids ministry. We are hopefully starting a youth ministry soon. We need help with the AV. We need help with setup and take down.

What would we look like as a church if we were a people that err on the side of action? If its in His Word, we are people who do it.

You were created on purpose for a purpose. You have been given many purposes already in His Word.

Luke 16:10 ESV

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.

Are you faithful in the little things first?

Remember this week,

You are special. God personally formed you and breathed His breath into you.

Every day and every breath is a gift from God, who is holding you together.

You were created on purpose, for a purpose.

Let us err of the side of action on the commands of His Word.

Let’s pray