In the beginning God

Nothing can be stronger that the foundation it is built on

The leaning tower of Pizza is the classic example of a building whose foundations weren’t quite right.

Without recent intervention it would have fallen over years ago.

The city of Christchurch in New Zealand has been dramatically affected by liquefied ground.

The major earthquake a few years ago triggered a reaction where enormous amounts of water deep in the sedimentary soils are disturbed and the soil liquefies. It is like what happens when you are standing on a sandy beach on the edge of the water and you pat the sand a few times. A layer of slurry forms which is unable to support you and you basically start sinking.

This is what happened to the city of Port Royal in Jamaica 1692. During an earthquake it simply sunk into the bay and disappeared beneath the waves.

Archaeologists are discovering that this is why they are sometimes unable to find significant remains of ancient cities where they should be.

They find bits and pieces but there seems to be a lot missing. As they do more research they conclude that the city has virtually disappeared because what it was built on became unstable and the city basically sank into the harbour or crumbled.

Nothing can be stronger than the foundation it is built on.

Jesus made this point in Matthew 7:24-27

Matthew 7:24–27 NLT

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

When we look at the Gospel of Matthew we find that these words appear at the end of what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. Two whole chapters of teaching about faith and living in the kingdom of God. Jesus outlines the nature of God’s kingdom, the ethics of those who belong to the kingdom and the very nature of God. Then he concludes with this statement about having a firm foundation based on his teaching.

The foundation of faith is our understanding of God

If your understanding of God is insufficient then your faith, your approach to life will be off track and so will the outcomes.

Perhaps your understanding of God as Father is damaged because things were not good between you and your father.

Your understanding of God might be off track because of an emotional distance; your father was not able for whatever reason to be open emotionally, usually because they didn’t enjoy that closeness with their own parents

Your understanding of God might be off track because of a controlling nature which didn’t allow you any freedom to make decisions, instead everything was seen through the lens of keeping the peace.

Your understanding of God might be off track because of the betrayal of divorce, a feeling of abandonment of being unwanted.

Your understanding of God might be off track because of some form of abuse which has left you feeling betrayed.

Or maybe your understanding of God has been damaged because things were not good between you and your mother.

Your view of God has not been twisted by a broken image of Father and protector but by the mother figure who in some way was an imperfect picture of the nurture which comes from God.

Perhaps your understanding of God as sovereign creator is insufficient because you have completely or subtly absorbed the humanist teaching that we all evolved.

And while today I want to focus on the first two verses of Genesis 1 and leave for a later time the evidence for and effects of holding to a Biblical understanding of creation, let me just briefly encourage you to at least have a look at the creation ministries website or even better to subscribe to the magazine. Read it and then give it to someone.

If you subscribe digitally you can read it and forward it to 3 others, great for the family.

Perhaps your understanding of God is insufficient because the picture painted for you in Sunday School or Religious Instruction or at the church run school was either the harsh angry god who would punish you for every wrongdoing or the gentle but weak god who never dealt with injustice that you were experiencing at school.

I can recall both sorts of lessons when I was a child. Sunday School with burning sulfur, quite a few kids ended up in tears, others had asthma attacks. School assemblies which were all emotional hype and obvious favoritism whilst using less favorite families who failed to live up to the standards as sermon illustrations.

Somehow my faith survived, but I do wonder at times if my outlook on ministry is often a reaction against some of the things I experienced.

If our understanding of God is insufficient for whatever reason then how we live will be affected.

Decisions about the value of life, about death, the treatment of others, ethical behaviour and relationships can all be off track because they are based upon a faulty premise.

We have to have a right foundation, a foundation based on God.

Our understanding of God starts with this profound truth; “In the beginning, God”

God is the subject of the very first sentence in the Bible.

In Genesis 1 the early Hebrew word for God (Elohim) is used thirty - five times

God is the one whom the book is about.

God is what everything is about.

You can fall for the humanist trap of believing that everything came from nothing.

And fool yourself into believing that there is no need for God, that there is no foundation for anything other than yourself.

In effect making yourself God

Or you can build your faith upon the foundational truth that, “In the beginning, God”.

“In the beginning” is far more than just a simple note of the time.

It is far more than a chronological reference that gives us a starting point in the story.

The way these words are used in Genesis 1:1 is a claim about the very nature of God.

It tells us that God is before the beginning, without God there is no beginning.

He is the source and the cause of all that is.

There is in this statement, “In the beginning, God” a sense of looking back before time itself.

Before matter existed God was.

Before time existed God was.

The Apostle John somehow grasped this idea in John 1:1 -3 when he spoke of Jesus.

John 1:1–3 NLT

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.

It is the idea conveyed in Isaiah 46:10

Isaiah 46:10 ESV

declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’

It is the idea spoken of in Proverbs 8:22 which speaks of wisdom being formed by God before the very beginning.

“In the beginning, God”..... speaks of glory, power and majesty beyond comprehension.

Listen to these words of Jesus in John 17:5

John 17:5 NLT

Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.

And again in John 17:24

John 17:24 NLT

Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!

“In the beginning, God” also speaks to us of the end of time.

Just as it all starts with God so it all ends with him.

When God addresses the nation of Israel through the prophet Isaiah he says this Isaiah 48:12

Isaiah 48:12 NLT

“Listen to me, O family of Jacob, Israel my chosen one! I alone am God, the First and the Last.

This is the statement of the risen Christ to the Apostle John in Revelation 1:17-18

Revelation 1:17–18 NLT

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.

The idea of Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end is repeated in Revelation 22:13

In the beginning, God. In the end God, nothing which is, is without God.

Here is the foundational truth, when we understand, “In the beginning, God”; We understand our place.

A place of complete and utter dependence.

Our understanding of God then grows with this amazing fact; “In the beginning God created”

Creation is the beginning of matter, time and space.

It then progresses to make order.

It is an act of God’s grace, we didn’t ask for creation. It didn’t come about because of any act of ours or any intrinsic worth of our own.

It was a free act of an infinite God. Because of this we can declare that life itself is good. Because God said it is in Genesis 1:4, 10, 12 , 18, 21, 25, 31

Because God created there is no room for any belief that life is meaningless.

We do not live and die without purpose, we were made for a reason.

Creation is not part of an endless cycle, an endless battle between good and evil.

Creation is an act of an all powerful God. Let me be clear on this. The good side wins. In the end death and the devil are defeated for all eternity.

But in the mean time creation does indeed live under the shadow of sin.

Things are not what they originally were things are damaged and we need redemption.

Without creation there can be no redemption.

Have a think about that and try to get your head around it.

Redemption that amazing work of God where sin is dealt with is like the musical that appears on the stage.

Without the stage and the backdrop and the seating and the lighting there is no musical.

God’s desire is that through creation the scene is set for redemption.

It is this understand of God that shapes our approach to all of life.

God’s sovereign rule - We see that he is Lord over us, that he has the sovereign right to our worship

We see that he has the right to judge us for our sin.

We see that he has the right to set the standard for our behaviour

We see that he has the right to demand we bring every aspect of our lives into submission to his Lordship

It is this understanding of God that sets us free from so many traps.

The trap of narcissistic self worship

The trap of enslavement to wealth, to sex, to achievement

Instead we can live in a place of freedom.

Freedom to love as we have been loved.

Freedom to serve as we have been served.

It is this understanding of God that empowers us to live.

Because we now know that the Holy Spirit living within us is the sovereign Lord of the universe.

We can in confidence follow his leading.

We can with boldness rely on his empowering

We can with joy rest in his peace.

It is this understanding of God that provides a foundation that we can build on