In the Beginning, GOD!

Psalm of the Day: Psalm 85

Psalm 85 ESV

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Lord, you were favorable to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of your people; you covered all their sin. Selah You withdrew all your wrath; you turned from your hot anger. Restore us again, O God of our salvation, and put away your indignation toward us! Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger to all generations? Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky. Yes, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.

Scripture Reading: John 1:1-5

John 1:1–5 ESV

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Sermon:

1

Speaker 1

00:01

May God bless the reading of his word, amen. Well, as you might have picked up from doing a few things, a little different, this morning, we did a scripture memorization from The Book of Genesis. We, we did instead of sort of our normal traditional corporate scripture reading, we did a selected reading from the New Testament Because we’re starting, it’s a season of new.

00:27

We could say, as we start the new year and a new series. If last week was my favorite type of sermon the last sermon in a series, as we finished Philippians This week is also my favorite sermon in any series. The very, very first one. The goal today is to give you I toyed with this name for the sermon, the Genesis of the Book of Genesis that we will be starting next.

00:56

Our passage for today, you might be looking Genesis 1 1. Genesis is a long book. I I also thought about, you know, we ended Philippians by reading the whole book. What if we read the whole book of Genesis, but that would take a real long time to do it in service.

01:12

So, instead we’ll go the opposite instead of reading the whole book, we’ll get as small as we can. And you might be thinking David if you’re only going to take Genesis, a half a verse at a time will be in this book for the rest of your life. Don’t worry, we will take larger passages as we go on.

01:30

But the goal today is to lay the foundation. For the Book of Genesis. Genesis, is a book that seeks to answer. All of life’s big questions. That’s a rather bold claim all of life, big questions. Yeah. I I think we find the answers contained in the Book of Genesis What is man?

01:53

Who is man. Where does man? Come from? What is the purpose of, man? What is my purpose? What is the purpose of life? What does this world? What does everything mean? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does this happen? Why doesn’t that happen the answers to these questions and more?

02:20

Find. Their start in many ways, but I would say, even we can make adequate and acceptable and fulfilling answers to all of these questions from the Book of Genesis So the first book in the Bible. So if you’re one of those people I say well turn with me to a passage and you get this fear of well I don’t know if I’ll be able to find it let me help you.

02:42

Genesis 1 1 a The first passage we’ll be looking at is the first passage in all of scripture so just flip right to the beginning. And truly beginning is the right way to classify. This book Genesis is a book of Beginnings. And in particular, The God Who works in the midst of those Beginnings.

03:03

Again, our passage for today is just the first half of verse 1. In the beginning.

03:14

These are the words of the Lord for us this morning. Let’s open with a word of prayer. Dear Lord. We do. Thank you. That you are. The God Who has been there? Been working. Since before the beginning. Since before time you are Eternal God Seated on the throne high and lifted up.

03:36

We thank you that you see fit to reveal yourself to us your creatures. Made in your image. To glorify to worship to honor. You may, we do that this morning. But you would open our eyes to see and hear who you are and what you’ve done. As we begin this series through the Book of Genesis, may you use your word for our good and ultimately for your glory as we are conformed into the image of your son, the long promised Messiah.

04:06

The one who would crush the head of the serpent. The one who would be a blessing to All Nations. The one who would save and deliver Jesus Christ. Our Lord, it’s in his name that we pray. Amen. And amen. As I said, we’re starting in the beginning. God and most of us know how this verse continues.

04:28

Hey, we know that it’s in the beginning. God created. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth and the Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light and God continues to create.

04:46

But before we get into all of those things, beautiful, wonderful things we have to wrestle with and figure out what is going on. What’s the the framework that’s going to help us understand the Book of Genesis? How can we? Get through this book. And so to do that to start, we’re going to be answering the journalistic questions.

05:09

And what I hope you see is, one of the answers will be the passage. We just read Genesis 1, 1 a But the first question we should wrestle with a little bit, is who And now there’s a few questions within this question that we have to make sure we understand.

05:26

And really, when we ask who there are two things, three, two and a half will say because we’re going to answer one twice. The first who is who’s in the Book of Genesis, who’s the book about And the second would be who wrote it and we’ll take these in reverse order.

05:42

The who wrote it? I just happen to be one of those old-fashioned. People who? Just like to go with what tradition says usually unless I have a really good reason to think otherwise. And for about 4, 000 years, people thought one person wrote The Book of Genesis And then about, 100 150 years ago people decided We don’t like that Genesis is a book of Moses.

06:12

It was written by Moses. Moses wrote this book to his people, as they were on the precipice of entering into the promised. Land Genesis is the first of five, what we call books of Moses And at some point we think sure, whatever Moses wrote, it doesn’t matter, it kind of does and it matters because Jesus says it matters.

06:38

The main reason, I’m one who’s willing to say, Moses wrote the book of Genesis is because Jesus said Moses wrote the book of Genesis in many places. For example, Matthew chapter 8 Jesus is speaking there. Matthew 8 4. Jesus says this. And Jesus said to him, See that you say nothing to anyone but go show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded many times.

07:07

Jesus says, did not Moses say, Moses said. And so if Jesus says Moses said it, I will say, Moses said it the first. Who question, who wrote it is Moses? But who is this book? Who’s in this book, who are the characters? Of this book. It’s a good question and just from the outside like if we just looked at the narratives, there’s a whole host of characters, there’s Adam and Eve, Kane and Abel, Noah and his family.

07:42

Then after we get through what we call, the prehistory of chapters 1 through 11 we’re introduced to the Patriarchs there. Really in many ways the who of Genesis Abraham, Isaac and Jacob And yet, even when we say this book is about the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the last 37 to the end to chapter 50 are about one of the sons of Jacob.

08:07

Joseph. So, the As many people, ultimately, I would argue the who is God’s people. The who is the people that God has sovereignly saved. Covenanted with. We’ll spend a lot of time talking about covenants. The ones God has created fashioned formed loved cared for that’s really the who of Genesis but ultimately what we need to see and understand.

08:40

The who? Of the Book of Genesis. Is God. This is a book about God. Moses begins by saying this in the beginning. God. God has assumed. And God is ultimately, I hope we will see as we go through this book, the main character Of the Book of Genesis, The Who Moses writing about God’s people to point us to God.

09:15

And what? Is the Book of Genesis. It’s often called the book of Beginnings. The first word in in the, in the Hebrew, right? In in the English, we have in Beginning. But in Hebrew. That’s all one word. Just meaning. Beginning. Truly the first three words are beginning. God created that, that’s how it reads woodenly.

09:44

In Hebrew. And technically, in is a prefix on the word. It’s a book of Beginnings. Hey, the reason we call it Genesis is the Greek translation of the Old Testament known as the Septuagint. It begins with this word Genesis in the Greek. Meaning Beginnings. And it is a book of the beginnings of basically all things.

10:11

The beginning of creation. The beginning of man, the beginning of God’s interaction with man, the beginnings of the law, the beginnings of Covenant, the beginnings of salvation, the beginnings of Life, the beginnings of how God works. The beginnings of everything is contained in the Book of Genesis. It is truly a book of Beginnings.

10:35

But what is the book of Beginnings like? Well, it’s a mixture. Poetry. Of historical narrative. Of genealogies. But mostly we can say it’s historical narrative with the Poetry. There’s a few songs and things like that mixed in to supplement that And with genealogies functioning as a part of History, Genesis is a book of History.

11:05

Many people look to the Book of Genesis and think it’s so Fantastical, so incredible. So miraculous That it never could have happened. But the Book of Genesis presents itself, as historical fact. And so Again. I realize and am completely aware that. I’m an old-fashioned prude who just likes to follow these things, but I’m just willing to say.

11:32

If Genesis says it happened, that’s how it happened. I believe there was a historical atom. And Eve there was a man named Noah who built a real boat that sailed that saved him as it, floated on the Waters of a flood that covered the face of the Earth. I believe there was a man from ER of the Chaldeans named Abram who God covenanted with and changed his name to Abraham, I believe these things truly happened.

12:02

Cuz it’s a book of History. It’s a book of fact. That’s what? It is. So it’s a book written by Moses about God’s people to point us to God. That’s the, who a historical book with narrative genealogy, some other things mixed in there, given to us as a record of History.

12:26

That’s what it is.

12:31

Well, there’s the white of when the book was written again. If I say, Moses wrote this, that means we have to place it in Moses’s. Lifetime in particular, I would say that Moses wrote this book when he was sitting down to write. Also Exodus Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy Which was the end of his lifetime.

12:51

This was a book written to God’s people as they stood on the precipice of walking into the promised land. And this is important because one of the reasons they’re walking into the promised land, is because God promised. Let’s even take a step back. They’re walking into the promised land.

13:08

Why would you call this the promised land? Because God promised Abraham this land? It’s called the promised land because of what we find in Genesis, And as the people are entering into the promised, land Moses is saying it’s important. We understand all that came before. How did God bring us here?

13:29

And he starts at the beginning. He works his way to the Patriarchs from the Patriarchs. He works his way to Exodus where Moses himself appears on the scene. He gives God’s law. He gives God’s commands to his people. Moses dies. And then Joshua leads the people into the promised land.

13:49

The Is God’s people on the precipice of seeing the promises in Genesis begin to come true. So that’s the one. It was written. But when did the events of the book? Take place. This is going to be a little more difficult to pinpoint. Exactly when Best estimates, most conservative estimates.

14:14

When does the Book of Genesis take place? Well, Joseph, the last main character and he’s not even fully a main character, but for our purposes, the last main character in The Book of Genesis, Dies in Egypt, right around 1800 BC. Okay, so this is 3800 years ago. That Joseph died.

14:42

Working backwards from the death of Joseph. We can go through the Patriarchs giving us Genesis 12. The introduction of Abram Abram was probably born around 2166 BC. So part of the, when is there’s this 350 year, sort of swath between Abram who became Abraham, his son, Isaac, his son, Jacob his son, Joseph, the birth of Abraham and the death of Joseph, there’s about 350 years in there.

15:19

Give or take Anyway, that’s a long time for only four generations but think about it. Abraham. Was like a hundred when he had his first kid. So that’s going to skew our numbers to be kind of big in a lot of ways.

15:39

But as we work our way back from that, these questions become more difficult, When did Moses live? When was the Tower of Babel Genesis 1 through 11 is what we call the pre-history. And dates are a lot more difficult. How do we date these earlier things? Well, some people will sit down, they’ll look at all the genealogies that look at all of these things.

16:03

And they’ll say, all of this adds up to about 6, 000 years. The Genesis 1 1. Happens about six thousand years ago.

16:17

And now, here we are 2000. A.D you had the 4000 BC plus, the 2000, A.D 6, 000 years old. I’m not as convinced about that exact figure. For a lot of reasons. I mean, even as we read the Old Testament genealogies, we see that often in genealogies. People are skipped.

16:35

And so to assume the Earth is six thousand years old assumes. That every genealogy is exactly complete with exactly all the right people and exactly the right numbers. And that’s a modern. Criterion that we are placing on an ancient book. Right to say that there might be Generations. Missing from the genealogies is not to say that they are wrong by any stretch of the imagination.

17:03

It’s to say that they counted things and they cared about different things back then. And so we shouldn’t put our requirements upon an ancient book. So I’m willing to say Abram was born about 4. 000 years ago. Joseph died about 3800 years ago. But further back from that the when is kind of hard to pinpoint, And that’s okay.

17:30

Because the Bible doesn’t care about being a book of arithmetic and math that helps us figure out the exact dates and times of things. There’s Eternal Timeless, beautiful truths that scripture’s trying to get us to see. So, Who wrote this? Moses to the people as they entered the promised land.

17:50

He wrote them a book of Beginnings which is a book of narrative, fact of History, mixed with genealogies and other things. He wrote it as they were entering the promised land about events. That had happened about 500 years before up to, we don’t know how much further before. But Moses is certainly looking.

18:11

Back. But then we get to the million dollar most important payoff question.

18:24

Did Moses write Genesis? Why did God have Moses write Genesis, why did Moses feel the need to say what? He said, how he said when he said it to the people that he said it to why is it preserved for us in the Holy scriptures? Why do we have the Book of Genesis And there’s a lot of ways we could answer this.

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But here’s maybe the most important one.

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Because even in the beginning,

19:04

Part of the, why of the Book of Genesis is to get us to see that? God, is the one who has been moving and working and willing, and holding, and ordaining, and fashioning and caring for and ordering and making things happen. According to his plan, for his will, for his glory, for our good, because he wants to, because he’s God, The why of the Book of Genesis is to show us that even from the very beginning God was doing what he wanted to do?

19:35

Why he wanted to do it how he wanted to do it, for the reasons, he wanted to do it and we his people follow along. The main character of the Book of Genesis is not men. There’s a lot of people we talked about this, I mentioned this in the who who’s it about.

19:54

The main character is not man. The main character of the Book of Genesis is God. The why of Genesis is to get us to see the glory and Splendor and wonder, and goodness, and Grace, and Justice, and mercy and long-suffering. Kindness, patience and plan of God. And when we see that in Genesis, when we see the plan, beginning in Genesis, as we go on towards the rest of all of scripture and we go on from Genesis to Exodus Leviticus Numbers.

20:28

Deuteronomy Joshua, Judges Ruth as we see history panning out as we see God working, it comes back to the why of Genesis because God is moving and working. There’s a lot of other things happening. A lot of things going on. A lot of other things that are raging on around us.

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The why of Genesis is because God since the beginning in the beginning from the beginning is working and willing for his good pleasure.

20:58

This is seen in so many ways. It’s seen in Genesis 1, 1 a in the beginning. God. Let’s see, the end of Genesis. The verse that I’ve selected for scripture memorization for this series Genesis 50 verses, 19 through 20. I will read it to you but my hope and prayer is by the end of this series each and every one of you will have this memorized.

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But just hear what Joseph says, but Joseph said to them Genesis 50 19. But Joseph said to them, do not fear for am I in the place of God? As we pause here for a second. Joseph understands what the Book of Genesis desperately wants us to understand that God has a place and God does what he wants.

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And only God sits in that place. The rest of us are not God, we do not sit in his place. We do not have his prerogatives. We don’t have his power, we don’t have his wisdom, we are not in the place of God. So, Joseph asked do not fear.

21:56

Fur am I in the place of God? As for you speaking to his brothers, Joseph says, as for you You meant evil. Against me. But God meant it for good. To bring it about, the many people should be kept alive. As they are today. God was moving, Joseph’s Brothers, sold him into slavery, Joseph’s Brothers, abused, mistreated, and then lied about the death of their brother, to their dad Joseph’s brothers, did a lot of bad things Joseph’s brother, sold him into slavery in Egypt.

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They meant to hurt Joseph. They did not like him. They were upset with him because he had some claims that God was going to bless him and keep him that. They just felt a little jealous and annoyed with. They wanted to hurt Joseph. They wanted to destroy and crush him.

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They wanted To ruin his life. They meant it for evil. But ultimately God is the one working. Because even in the beginning,

23:06

And so they Joseph said, you guys meant it for evil but hear me clearly. Joseph says you may have meant it for evil, but God, the one who seated in heaven that I’m not in his place. God meant it for good. I want us to hear what Joseph says here.

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What Joseph does not say. Hear this clearly and hear my heart in this church. What Joseph does not say is you meant it for evil, but God was able to change it for good.

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If that’s what it said, this is what jokes will be saying. The human selling for evil, but God was able to Fix some things, work around some things, and change it around. So that what you meant for evil God was able to change for good. What Joseph says, is what you meant for evil?

24:04

God intended. God meant for good. Joseph is saying and we cannot miss this, that no event, no moment that transpires on this Earth is outside the realm of God’s Sovereign hand. You may do all sorts of things and mean, all sorts of things. God is the one who will use it for his good purpose and the purpose that God used Joseph’s life for was to keep many people alive.

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To provide for God’s people to preserve. We will see this. As we work through Genesis to preserve God’s promises by saving a people in particular, the sons of Israel in particular Judah. So that Many would be kept alive in Joseph’s time. So that We may be made alive. Today.

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The, why of the Book of Genesis? Is to get us. To Jesus Christ. He is on every page, in every story in every narrative, in every genealogy, in every moment of every word of the Book of Genesis, we are to see and be pointed to Jesus Christ. Our Savior So as we study the familiar stories, don’t ever forget your savior Adam and Eve point us to Jesus Cain and Abel.

25:35

Point us to Jesus, Noah is not just a story about a boat and pairs of animals. It is a story pointing us to Jesus. The Tower of Babel points us to Jesus, Abraham points us to Jesus. Isaac to Jesus, Jacob to Jesus Joseph and his life. And his saving of his family is, meant to point us to, and prepare the way for Jesus.

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It’s always all about him. That’s the ultimate.

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And it has been, Since the beginning. Because in the beginning,

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We’re going to cover a lot of stuff. In a lot of big books. And a lot of things. Don’t ever. Lose sight. Of your savior. Let’s pray.