God, The Creator

We all plan in different ways…

But what we really have to do when we start something, no matter what our planning style is, is know where we want to end up when we are done.

Genesis is a word that means beginning or origin. It is the beginning of the story of creation…

When God started, really before He started, He knew not only the end He wanted, but what was going to happen and how He was going to get it exactly to where He wanted it! And the creation account in Gen 1 gives us a pretty good idea of what that looks like!

God created a good and orderly creation that only He could.

Read and pray

God is the author and creator

1:1

God is the one who created everything. He’s the only one who could have. He speaks and it is so! This story is about his glory being revealed to his creation and through his creation, including humanity.

Colossians 1:16 ESV

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.

The end that God is working the story toward is the one that brings him the most glory, which is the best possible thing for his people. Our greatest good is found in his greatest glory!

Rest in knowing that God wrote this story and that He is good. Trust Him!

Do you have a restaurant that you feel like you can go to and order anything and know that it’s going to be good? I’ve got a few, Whataburger is the first that comes to mind. That peace that you feel at that restaurant (hopefully y’all know what I’m talking about and this isn’t just part of my unhealthy relationship with food) is a smaller scale of the rest that we can take as Christ followers knowing that our Creator has ordered things from beginning to end and He is good!

Rest in knowing that He wrote the story and He is good!

Let’s start looking at what He created.

God created with order

God built order into his creation for his creation. This is a way that He has cared for us. Order is good.

Have someone come up for a nerf gun duel, but shoot them almost right away.

Boom. Chaos. See, we want order!

Order lets us know what to expect. We can have rhythm to life. We can be prepared.

Look at how we see order built in throughout the creation story…

look in Bible for notes

We should look for the order He has placed in creation and do our best to live by it. Not only in the stars and seasons and among creatures, but also in how He has called us to live with Him and with one another. To love Him above all else and love others as ourselves. He has ordered these things and we must trust the order He has given us and seek it out in Scripture and live according to it. This is a blessing to us!

Just think about if everyone lived according to the order revealed in his Word, how pleasant and peaceful life could be! Seek that out, share it! It is good! All of creation was!

God’s creation was good

All of creation, in its original state, was good. Even very good! The writer of Genesis lets us know frequently throughout the account that God said it was good.

The thing that made creation “very good” was humanity. The crown jewel of God’s creation.

verse 27

We are the only part of creation made in his image. Little reflections. We are different from the rest of creation, set to have dominion over the rest of the good creation, according to the order He set.

So there is order to creation. Creation is good. Then graduates to very good when God’s image bearers, humanity, are created. And we are to have dominion over the Earth, to care for it.

My family went on vacation this summer to Wyoming and we went to Yellowstone… and to Grand Teton National Park. That may be the most beautiful place the Lord has let me see with my own eyes…

My boys were getting frustrated with me for taking so many pictures…

Yet as beautiful as it was…, I know that it’s not what it was in Genesis 1. It’s been tainted…

There are things that aren’t as they should be… Can’t you tell?…

The people who were there still bear God’s image, but it’s like it’s through a cracked mirror. This is all because of sin.

But God knew that sin would break his creation before He even created it…

He also knew that He would make a way to fix it…

And He knew that in the end, the original beauty of creation would return! Maybe even better in his new heavens and new earth!

Revelation 21:1–4 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.””

Revelation 21:22–27 “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

Revelation 22:1–5 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”

This healing that will come to creation, to humanity, comes only through God’s Son Jesus.