Sermon Tone Analysis

In The Beginning

Have you ever seen the Antique Roadshow?

Or American Pickers?

I love those shows.

If you watch very long you begin to understand that an objects provenance, or beginnings are important.

One guy brought in two small ceramic bowl type things.

He openly admitted he was not sure what they were, but he and a friend decided they were “egg coddlers.”

These are small dishes to hold a baked or boiled egg.

The expert took the dishes, looked at the mark, and said, “no, they are not egg coddlers.”

She continued to tell him that these were in fact “bulb planters.”

Small bowls to start a bulb, like a tulip, hyacinth or something.

And they are not just any old bulb bowls, they were by a specific artist.

Because the expert knew who the creator was, she was able to place high value on the items.

Knowing who the creator, artist, or originator of an item is important to know giving value.

Not only did it help to place the value, knowing the creator, revealed the original purpose for the objects.

The beginning matters.

What we believe about the beginning impacts how we live our life.

How we interact with others and with our world.

Understanding our beginning gives us purpose.

Our beginning starts with GOD.

In the beginning, God….

As Ken Mathews puts it: “If we possessed a Bible without Genesis, we would have a ‘house of cards’ without foundation or mortar.

We cannot insure the continuing fruit of our spiritual heritage if we do not give place to its roots.

What does this mean?

It is our world view.

Moses, the writer of Genesis, is setting forth a world view centered on God.

When we talk about Creation we have a tendency to get bogged down in the why and how.

“Is it an actual 7 days, the big Bang??” “Young earth, old earth,” we get stuck here, in the weeds missing the big picture.

The point isn’t to explain the “how” of the beginning.

There is an element of mystery here.

I am OK with the mystery.

I am not sure I want to serve a God that I can explain everything about Him.

This is what makes Him God.

Our focus is on the WHO not the WHY of creation.

Like we said at the beginning, the artist/creator often determines the value of an object.

They give the object purpose.

Believing God created everything enables us to understand the purpose of His Creation.

We know the creator.

Let’s look at it from Moses’s vantage point.

He is living in a culture that has many stories of creation with many gods.

Moses, however, is laying out the foundation of THE GOD.

Of the one single true God.

As the creator, God has authority over his creation.

This authority is what allows him to speak truth direction to us.

The local myths had stories of gods fighting and one winning dominion, but THE GOD, Our God did not win anything.

He created it.

A retired pastor I know used to tell a joke, it cracked him up every time.

A man challenged Jesus.

He said with science he can now create a man from dirt.

The dirt holds all the particulars he needed.

Jesus agreed.

The man looked at Jesus and said, give me some dirt.

Jesus looked at him and said, “make your own.”

The Psalmist ascribes creation to God: , Let them praise the name of the Lord!

For he commanded, and they were created.

And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.

The creator understands the purpose of the created.

He forms the object to fulfill its purpose.

This gives the creator authority.

They have the authority to speak about their creation.

Isaiah a prophet, spoke about the Lord’s plan for man.

Before he spoke though gave the authority to God.

God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out.

He created the earth and everything in it.

He gives breath to everyone, life to everyone who walks the earth.

And it is he who says, I, the Lord, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.

Basically, Isaiah says, the Lord, he created everything, and he SAYS…I have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.

In the beginning he created the Heavens and the Earth

It is no accident that God is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible, for this word dominates the whole chapter and catches the eye at every point of the page: it is used some thirty-five times in as many verses of the story.

If you write in your Bible, circle or highlight the word God as you read.

With a glance, you will see that the focus of the passage is God.

The passage, indeed the Book, is about him first of all; to read it with any other primary interest (which is all too possible) is to misread it.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good.

Then he separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light “day” and the darkness “night.”

And evening passed, and morning came, marking the first day.

Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.”

And that is what happened.

God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens.

God called the space “sky.”

As we read notice other repeated passages.

What is the author conveying to us?

Notice the phrase, “And that is what happened.”

God said, let there be…and that is what happened.”

One of the other creation myths had the gods reciting magic incantations to create the earth.[1]

The writer is emphasizing that the one true God, spoke it and it happened.

And evening passed, and morning came, marking the second day.

Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.”

PAUSE, ASK THE CONGREGATION TO SAY OUT LOUD,

And that is what happened.

God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.”

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation – every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit.

These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.”

PAUSE And that is what happened.

The land produced vegetation – all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit.