Reengaging the Spiritual III
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Genesis 1
Two very common questions amongst us humans is, “What is the purpose of life” or “Why are we here.” The other is, “If God is real, then why doesn’t He do something about all this chaos.” Then a follow-up question might be - what does the Bible say.
Part of our problem in answering questions such as those, is we either treat the Bible like a textbook or encyclopedia, that it should contain all the answers to life’s questions. Or, in a similar fashion, we treat it like a Magic 8-Ball - ask a question, shake it and find the answer we want. And if we don’t like the answer, we either shake it again or ignore it.
The Bible was never meant to be either. The Bible is the story of God, it is His primary means of revealing Himself to the world. When we begin to presume what the Bible should be, rather than what it is, we can end up with some shaky theology - that sometimes can do more damage than good.
Therefore, one of the challenges of the modern Christian is to approach the Bible in its context, understanding that it was written to a particular people, at a particular time, for particular reasons and then applying the timeless truths to our context. By timeless I mean what can be verified in both the Old and New Testaments. For example, the NT says nothing of wearing clothes made of two kinds of material being unlawful. But both Testaments affirm that murder is wrong.
So, what’s my point?
To reengage the spiritual, means we must resist superimposing our 21st century ideas upon Scripture.
To reengage the spiritual possibly means to unlearn some of the teachings and traditions that have been passed down for hundreds of years that might not be true.
So what does the Bible say about purpose and chaos? We can’t cover those exhaustively, but at let’s see what we can come up with this morning.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
One thing that’s interesting here is that the Hebrew language leaves a little bit of flexibility with verses 1 and 2. Grammatically, there are two possible interpretations:
1) Is the one we’re familiar with, the one we just read - “In the beginning ….”
Or, it can read …
2) “When God began to create, etc. … the earth was without form.” Some interpret this to mean that material was already present when God began creating the earth. Both translations are possible, and both are supported by other ancient versions of the text.
I bring that up because people try to do all kinds of things with verses 1 and 2, most notably that Gap Theory - that there are possibly thousands to billions of years between 1 and 2. That gets unto other Biblical issues and problems.
The biggest issue is trying to superimpose modern ideas of evolution or creation onto two verses. Not necessarily a good idea. What we need to do is really stick with the text from an ancient perspective. So with either translation, the bottom line is this - Scripture affirms the unequivocal truth that until God spoke, nothing physical existed.
Now we already established last week that there is a definite beginning to our universe – that Yahweh, who is in the spiritual realm created our physical realm. And nowhere does the Bible give us a time-frame. No one knows precisely when the universe began. Now we can discuss and speculate, but the truth is we just don’t know. Whether it was millions of years or thousands, there is no empirical evidence for either.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. There is a mystery here about creation that we are supposed to enjoy. There is supposed to be this awe and wonder, not so much about the science of creation, but about the Creator. We’re supposed to look up at the stars with fascination and worship and say, “Look at what my God did!
When my son was a wee little lad, I can’t tell you how many times I would build something or fix something that in his mind was impossible to do. He would be like crying, “My toy broke and it’s never going to work again ….” And me, being the genius that I am would take the toy and put new batteries in it and he would be like, “Wow! Look at what my daddy did!” And I’d be like, “Yeah, look at what yo’ daddy did!”
I think that’s what Genesis is trying to emphasize - look at what God did. There is a lot of information that God did not give us about creation - and we have to be ok with that, because we don’t want to lose the awe and wonder of the Mystery. No matter what anyone says, we don’t want to lose giving God the glory and the credit. We don’t’ want to lose the opportunity to say, “My God did that!”
See,
The when and the how (the mechanics), as important as they are, are less important than who.
The main subject of Genesis 1 and 2 is not science, it’s God, and to miss that is to miss the whole point. Science has its place, and the creation / evolution debate has its place, but Genesis is about the One who called it all into existence - so don’t lose that.
The whole purpose of this Bible is what? Again, it’s Yahweh’s self-revelation to us - so that we may know Him. When Moses was inspired to write Genesis, he wasn’t thinking about science, the Hubble telescope or evolution - or anything like that. He was writing to reveal God. So, to superimpose the 21st Century upon Scripture is not a healthy way to read Scripture. We must come to Scripture on its terms – keeping everything in historical and cultural context.
So, what is the context here?
The context is really the ancient view of creation - which is not distinctly Hebrew or Judeo-Christian.
Many civilizations at that time had a similar understanding of the universe - that whoever the god(s) was that formed the heavens and earth, formed them out of chaos.
Chaos is something you should keep in mind as you read Scripture - it is a theme throughout the Bible, though subtle at times. Especially in times of antiquity, large bodies of water, such as oceans and seas, even the Sea of Galilee at the time of Christ often represented chaos or they abyss. These large bodies of water were unpredictable and at times threatening – hence chaos.
In a more academic description,
Chaos describes the state of disorder that preexisted in the absence of a divinely imposed order on the cosmos.
In other words,
The universe was a wild and crazy place until a god or gods subdued the forces of chaos.
That is the imagery that the Biblical authors understood – that Yahweh created order out of chaos.
So that’s the big picture – let’s look at verse 2 a little closer. Remember, we’re still talking context.
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
What does it mean that the earth was without form and void? The Hebrew words used here, tōhu and bōhu, describe material that lacks boundary (i.e. vast) or order. These same two words are used in
I looked on the earth, and behold, it was without form and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
The scene here is a description of a desert wasteland where no animal or man was found. That’s the imagery of tōhu and bōhu. These are not words that describe nonexistence, but rather an empty barren inhospitable environment. Now, the word Deep is tehōm, which refers to the sea this place of chaos. Keep that in mind.
So verses 1 and 2 are not describing empty space, but disorder and chaos that needs to be subdued. And what does God do with all this chaos? He speaks and says, “Let there be … light, and atmosphere, and water, and plants, and stars, and animals and humans.”
God, by His powerful word subdued chaos.
He brought order to where there was no order.
But God doesn’t stop there. Look at
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
What is God saying? “I created you to be like me, so go forth and continue the work of bringing order to chaos.”
What’s the purpose of life? At least one purpose is God has created us to bring order to chaos - just like Him.
Don’t believe me – look at
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
You don’t need to subdue anything if it’s already tame and subdued. You don’t tell a dog to sit if it’s already sitting. There’s a reason why God said subdue the earth – and I believe it was to continue the work of bringing order.
Still don’t believe me. Look at
Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
You can’t have a bunch of animals running around without names - that would be chaos. “What’s your name little fella?” “I don’t know. No one ever named me.” Adam and Eve would be like Abbott & Costello - “Who’s on first, What’s on second and I Don’t Know is on third.” It would be total pandemonium.
So God invited Adam to help create order by naming the animals. That’s part of being made in God’s image - bringing order to chaos.
Unfortunately, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the garden, they opened the door for chaos to reenter creation in a sense, in the form of shame and guilt and death. And what does God do?
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Look, they blew it. They really blew it. They created chaos where there was once order. Yet God takes the initiative to do what? To cover their shame and guilt and give them some semblance of order.
Isn’t that what God does throughout the Bible? The Bible is about God’s redemption and moving humanity from chaos to order. After Adam and Eve leave the Garden, God instituted a sacrificial system to pay for and forgive sins, which eventually led to the perfect and once and for all sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ on the cross - but it does stop there. There is a day coming when God will finally and ultimately subdue chaos and reestablish order in the physical and spiritual realms for eternity.
How do we know this? Remember the context here. This is all about God subduing the waters of chaos.
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.
So, what does all this mean for us? What do we do in the “in-between” the first order and the second order? To reengage the spiritual is to understand our place in a world that is full of chaos. As co-creators with God, as men and women who are made in His image, we are to be like God by bringing order to chaos.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Peace is the opposite of chaos. As I said earlier, God has created us to bring order to chaos.
So how do you do that?
Name a few people or situations that are in chaos right now.
List some possibilities - how could you help bring order to the chaos?
I didn’t see a way to put this in the sermon, but I want us to connect the dots. Yahweh brought order to the water chaos in Genesis 1. We believe that Jesus is Yahweh in the flesh, right.
One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”