In The Beginning Pt 1

Introduction

Every good story has a beginning. From Once upon time, It was the best of times, it was the worst of the times, Call me Ishmael and even Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. Each beginning of story sets the tone and gives crucial information about what is to follow. Today, we read the beginning of the greatest true story that was ever told. It begins with these simple and profound words that with each utterance have a profound and lasting effect on everything it touches, which in fact is everything. It says simply and powerfully 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.[ This story and words have a profound effect on you, your life, and your day to day events, as this is this start of them, the start of your birth, the start of your life, the start of your redemption story, and so much more. With the profoundness of these words and this story, comes our realization of our need to understand them and build up on them. In them we see truth about God, His Creation, and ourselves. Believers must know the truth about God and His creation. So, we rejoice in them, and look anxiously towards what God is going to show us about Himself and ourselves through them. Let’s pray.

Prayer

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.

Context

This week we begin a new short sermon series through the book of Genesis (which means beginnings). This of course is the first book of the bible, located within the new testament, in addition it is the first of the books of the law of Moses, who history and scholars largely agree is the man that God used to write down these historical accounts of early mankind. As this book contents historical accounts, its genre is itself history, and should be interpreted as such. So, as Hermeneutics (which is the study/practice of bible interpretation) dictates, it’s best and most consistent to interpret what is being said in this historical account as literally true. So, we should interpret these accounts, history, and numbers as literally true without any poetic or “good story telling” inflation, much like we did in the books of Acts and Nehemiah.

It’s important for believers to have a firm grasp on the book of Genesis, especially the first few chapters, as they contain some of the most pivotal moments in your history, including creation, mankind's original fellowship with God, and our fall into sin which separates us from God and required the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ the Righteous to save and redeem us from our sin.

It’s also important because when you read these first few chapters, every reader is forced to answer a question….. This is, do I believe this? Do I believe the Bible? Can I trust it? Indeed if you cannot and do not trust your bible, which is God’s Holy Word given to us through the many generations to understand Him, His Will, and our relationship with Him, if you can’t trust that word; then there is very little reason for your religion. And no authority that the Pastor in the Pulpit can stand upon and Preach within. Also, the believer has no authority in which trust and in which The Gospel is Proclaimed. If you can’t trust God, then the worship you offer Him is false or misguided. So, affirming that yes you believe it, yes you trust, is pivotal to any Christian at any stage of faith. As such, and as you believe it, it stands that Believers must know the truth about God and His creation.

In these few chapters, we will see much revealed about God, His Character, His Creation (including you), ourselves, and our relationship with The Creator God, the Almighty. So, let’s start this journey together and jump into the text where from, I want you to see and understand these truths from the beginning.

Message

The first truth to see and understand is that: God Was 1-2

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.[a]2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

In these few verses, comes the answer that we have all probably asked ourselves or been asked by someone new in their faith. This of course is that question. “When was God Made” or “When did He Start.” Here is the answer, He always was. This is hard for us to wrap our minds around, as we experience the world through God’s creation, and as created being ourselves we have never experienced and will never experience timelessness, true eternity, and always was. Yes, the Bible is clear, that even though our spiritual souls and self go on to live for the rest of forever after our death, still that soul and our bodies was created by a God that always was. He was before our timeline, the timeline maker, the artist that created it. For us, the beginning starts at this point, when He began to create. When He did, He created the Heavens and the earth.

It all starts with formless and void empty darkness of watery depth, and God the Holy Spirit was hovering just above it all. Indeed this is the beginning as far as we are concerned. Nothing that applies to us (other than that there is a Creator God) happened before, so we start the timeline and story of creation and humanity here in this spot. So, from even before the beginning, God was.

God further reveals this truth in the bible, and we went through this recently on Wednesday night and last Sunday with the kids. God affirms this truth to Moses in Exodus 3, here Moses is tasked with returning to the enslaved Israelites. Moses the murder at this point is scared of the prospect, and asks God a question. Who am I to tell them has sent me? That is, by whose authority am I to tell them to follow me. Go replies, “Tell them that the I AM sent them.” Tell them that the being (God) who always has been and always will be has sent you. So, God clearly states His eternal nature, the fact that He always was to us.Believers must know the truth about God and His creation.

You must know that God always was, and that everything you see, feel, taste, understand, don’t understand, and experience is part of His creation, a creation in which He made, a creation that He is very much active in. Knowing and understanding this will help ground your faith-life. It will help you to know that even during the dangerous, terrible, and scary times that He is very near and He has much concern for you. It helps you know that His hand is active and moving through the strife. It gives us confidence in the fact the He knows best, and what He has said and commanded for you, is for your good and to your benefit. It helps us push away the doubts whether they be from a scientific theory that disagrees or our own willful doubt because we want to “have it the way we want” that we want to not be held accountable to perfect judge for the sin that we have done and want to continue in. God was, and you will do well to see and remember this truth. Now. let’s see something else about God and our relationship with Him:

The next truth to see and understand is that: God Spoke 3-30

3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.”[b] Evening came and then morning: the second day.9 Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the water he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 Evening came and then morning: the third day.14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for seasons[c] and for days and years. 15 They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night—as well as the stars. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth, 18 to rule the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 Evening came and then morning: the fourth day.20 Then God said, “Let the water swarm with[d] living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged creature according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them: “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 Evening came and then morning: the fifth day.24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.26 Then God said, “Let us make man[e] in[f] our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl[g] on the earth.”27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God;he created them male and female.28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” 29 God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, 30 for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given[h] every green plant for food.” And it was so.

In these verses we see the 6 days that God took to create everything. What I want you to notice, is that at the beginning of each area of creation, God does the same thing. He speaks, He spoke all of creation into being. No other action was necessary for Him, just that He would declare that something was to be, and so it was. No other being has ever or will ever be able to do this. In fact, no other being other than God can create, all we can do is rearrange or reorganize the creation God has made. This action of creation is testimony to the greatness and power of our God.

When going through these verses, In verse 3, we see the creation of light, this light was good. Here we also see the institution of what He called and we called a day, consisting of their being both light and darkness, our day which for simplicity we declared it to be 24 hours. So, there is a sun up and sun down now we enter into the second day in verse 6 where God creates the sky and the atmosphere. There was a night and a day, completing the 2nd day, which brings us to the 3rd day which brings in dryland upon the wet and chaotic earth on this day was also made. You see the drill now I trust, there was a sun up and sun down. This brings us to day 4 staring in verse 14, where God created the moon, and the seasons, and the stars we observe in the sky, this day, as it is for us now the moon lighted the night sky. This brings us to the 5th day in verse 20, in which the Lord God spoke into existence all the water creatures and all the winged creatures. God blessed them, and desired that they multiply and fill the earth, then the sun went down on this day, and we began our 6th day. This was a very important day indeed, as The Lord God spoke into existence first all the land animals of the world then in verse 26 He does something different. Look at His creation He and the other parts of the God Head decided to create a being that was like Him in image. So, He created mankind. God was pleased with this creation, very pleased with them, He charged them to be fruitful, to multiply, fill the earth, and subdue (meaning rule) it. Every creature that inhabited the earth, God put the man and woman over. He even gave them dominion and every other living being to earth the vegetation that filled the earth. That’s right, when mankind and animal kind was first made, we were all plant eaters, but we will see that change in a few chapters.

The tongue has such great power. In fact, King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 18 that the tongue has the power of life and death in it, and that we will eat of the fruit of it in which we share. That is, the tongue has the power to build up or tear down. This is within the power of the human tongue. If indeed the pen is mightier than the sword, the human human tongue is mightier than the atomic bomb. As powerful as our tongues are, they each and collectively pail in comparison to God. Just think about it, no matter how hard I try, just because I say something doesn’t mean it’s true, and just because I want and say that something should be, doesn’t create it.

Let me give you a funny example of this being woefully true. As you all know, I suffer from severe allergies. Getting medically tested, the discovery was that for me if it is green, then I’m extremely highly allergic to it. Before I became aware of that and began seeking treatment, I knew that I had bad allergies, and vocally longed for a land that had absolutely no vegetation and a breeze to blow all allergens away. I imagined it in my head, the allergy haven paradise, a block of concrete in the middle of the ocean in which nothing and no one was allowed. I would begin to tell people about this wonderful place I dreamed up, and I named it Jacobia, of which I was to be founder and emperor of. Now, as nice as Jacobia would be, it doesn’t really exist, and no matter how much I speak about it and desire for it to be, reality is that it doesn’t exist, even as wonderful as it would be. I can’t speak into existence, but God can and has.Believers must know the truth about God and His creation. A key truth about creation, is that God spoke it all (including everything you have ever seen or experienced) into creation. Now let’s move into

Another truth to see and understand is that: God Saw 31

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

After the conclusion of creation, God looked. He saw all these things He had made. He saw how they all interacted and worked together. He saw their relationship with Him, He saw them with pride and joy and delight. He saw it, and saw something that was very good indeed; this was the final day of creation.

Now, if at this point if you’re a little confused at the order of evening then morning, let me remove that confusion for you. In our culture, we consider a day a daytime and then a nighttime. But, look how God created it. First there was darkness, then there was light. So, to Him and the Hebrew culture, a day starts at sundown, the midpoint is night like it is for us, but it is the sun coming up. Hopefully that helps you. Night day, Night Day- this constitutes the making of the 24 hour day, not day night day night as we think of it.

God sees everything, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the hidden, the obvious. He sees this, but I tell you today, we will never see anything that that is “Very Good Indeed” as He did on this day until our each meet those of Jesus’ either at our end or the start of the next age. Believers must know the truth about God and His creation. The truth about God’s creation, is that it was created by Him, and when He looked upon it at this first occasion, it was very good. It was very very very different from the fallen world that you and I experience today. This was God’s first and perfect design, that it was very good indeed, but through our mother and father’s fall into sin (rebellion against God, which we will read about more in the coming weeks), that goodness left the world. It will return one day, and the Goodness of God has dwelt on earth once when Jesus walked among us. For now, we wait until His Goodness returns the New Heavens and New Earth will come to us, which will be the whole and true and perfect Goodness that was in God’s design.

Conclusion

So then Beloved, let us know these things about God and our relationship with Him. Let us esteem ourselves less and Him more. Let us each know that He always was and will be, let us understand that our timeline started with before it, let that humble us in our pride, and let us all seek to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples that many more will know the perfection that God saw and has designed and waiting for the redeemed in Christ.

With all of that being said, I would be remiss if I didn’t share the Gospel (or the Good News) of Jesus Christ with you today, for the benefit of both believer and non-believer in the room. This begins all the way back at the beginning, God created everything, and he created all things good. He gave His most treasured creation (us, mankind) the ability of free will, the ability to choose Him or rebellion. Man was deceived by Satan and desired to be like God and sinned (or rebelled against God). This brought the curse of sin and death into the world and it remains with us to this day; which separates us from God. God, though, loved His creation (mankind) so much that He worked through history to redeem all mankind that would turn to Him from sin so that we can experience a full and perfect relationship with Him again. This was through the perfect and final sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the pay for sins. Accepting this free gift from God, makes you new and forgiven. All you have to do is accept this free gift by repenting and believing in the Lord Jesus and you will get to experience the good side of God’s justice forever. So, now that you know this, you can no longer plead ignorance. I invite and urge you to respond today non-believer and apply this to every part of your life believers in the audience today.

Father God, we thank You for Who You are. A great Big God who sees each and every one of us here and cares deeply about us. We ask this day, as we are continuing in this time of worship to You, reading Your Word and hearing Your Word, that You refine us with it. Mold us, make us, shape us, rearrange us so that we can be more like You, and made more into the image of Christ. Help us be a people who love You and love others so much, that we are moved into action by whatever it is You are going to show us about Yourself today and what that means in our lives. Help us do this, because all too often our selfish and sinless flesh war against our will to follow Yours. As we are doing this, and as we are coming into Your Word today, we ask that You take away any distraction that we may have, and make it go as far away as it possibly can, because we want to see and we want to know You better. It’s in these things that I ask and in Jesus Christ’s Holy and precious name that I pray, Amen.