Genesis Overview/Creation Part 1

Genesis, Part 1: 1:1-31 At last! We get to start Genesis! This has been a long time coming for me. I had to wait until we finished the Christmas season. Then the weather got to us. The service where we commissioned the youth was glorious! But it took longer than I expected. And who can forget Chris and Rusty’s story last week, for those of us who were here? I am excited to begin this series. It will be the largest amount of material we have covered so far since we’ve been Grace United. Revelation, the book we finished before Christmas was 22 chapters. Genesis is 50. It takes a person, me at least, about 2 hours to read Revelation in one sitting. It takes me about 3 and a half for Genesis. Genesis, unlike Revelation, is nothing but story after story. Revelation includes at least 7 letters the Lord Jesus dictated through an angel to John to give to the 7 churches. And remember how Revelation is not just a series of visions—stories—but the entire book is really one letter the Lord directed John to give to the churches. Before we get into the text of Genesis, we need to talk about some of the issues surrounding the book. We are as it were, on the apron of an in-ground swimming pool, waiting for the signal to get into the water. I know—a bad analogy in the dead of winter. Makes us look forward to summer, though. As I mentioned, the entire book of Genesis is made up of true stories from 1:1 to 50:26. That’s a little obvious, but important to keep in mind. Because Genesis is entirely stories, we need to understand something about the power of stories and why God inspired Moses to write them. Then I want to briefly ask and answer the very important questions of why Genesis and why now? There is a method to the madness here. The third thing I want to do is to talk about context—the context of the culture of the day and suggest a way to read and understand Genesis and a way to not read and understand it. As I mentioned, since Genesis is entirely stories, we need to understand them that way. This is part of what is called genre. Like with anything we read, it’s different with different material. For example, we don’t read instruction manuals the way we read history. Or novels. Or fake news. Then I want us to walk through Genesis 1—God’s story—of how we got here and then give us some extremely important applications from this chapter. It sounds like a lot, but if we don’t get this, we might wind up reading these stories without understanding the truth of what the Lord is telling us. So, let’s talk about the power of stories. Imagine a world where all we share with one another is disjointed facts. When we talk to one another, it’s two running monologues of facts. If we do that enough, we will amass a huge amount of info. But if all we did was to act like Detective Friday on Dragnet—remember that show where his signature line is, “just the facts,” what kind of world would that be? Drab, lifeless. Stories bring facts and truth to life, don’t they? We can give one another a string of facts about something, but when we tell those facts by weaving them into a story, how much better is that? I was talking to Mike and Glenda the other day and she told me this: facts tell, but stories sell, as in sell products and services. Facts inform us. But stories impact us; they literally change our lives. To continue with the analogy, say we heard a compelling story about the latest and greatest electronic gadget. It would rock our world, they said. We believed the storyteller about this product. But we can’t afford it just yet. So we spend time saving up to buy it, because the price tag is pretty hefty. The day comes and we make the purchase. Now what do we do with our new treasure? We take the time to figure out how to use it. It works as advertised, even better. Now we have a story to tell about the product that can rock their world. And so we try to persuade others to get them to buy it, too. The bottom line is that well told stories are much more appealing than strung together facts. If we were given a choice to attend a lecture or go to a movie, what would we choose, hands down? Movies of course. Why? Because movies tell stories in appealing ways. That just stands to reason. Something else about stories. We learn, and remember more through stories than just a string of facts. For example, when a preacher delivers a message, even all important messages like salvation through faith in Christ, what is the one thing we most likely remember? The illustrations—the stories the preacher uses to explain the teachings. Jesus spoke in parables—told stories—usually nailing people to the wall with them, but he told most of them as answers to questions others asked. Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan when someone asked him, “Who is my neighbor?” Another time, the Pharisees asked Jesus about what he thought of their spiritual condition and he told them the story of the Good Shepherd to illustrate to them how blind they were. Now, the biggest story of this past week has got to be the one between Nathan Philips and MAGA hat clad Nick Sandmann, who has become the face of the Covington Catholic High School. How did the nation first become aware of it? We were presented with a small video which made it look like Sandmann accosted Mr. Philips. The story was told. People took sides. The visceral reactions were intense. Death threats to the kids and their parents. The school was closed for a day because of threat of violence, the mayor of the town and the Catholic diocese denounced the students. The students were, according to one account, forced to hire attorneys because of their names being defamed. But in a matter of hours another part of the story became apparent: a group called the Black Hebrew Israelites initially taunted members of the indigenous Peoples March who were both on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Nathan Philips was an elder of that group. As the taunting was going on, the Israelites turned their vile attention to the Covington Catholic Boys High School. They participated in the Right to Life March earlier that day and were gathered at the Lincoln Memorial waiting for their busses to arrive so they could go home. So what happened here? As a nation, we were set in the middle of the narrative. The story. At first, we weren’t told the beginning of the story. And given how quickly the news cycle goes, it’s highly unlikely we will ever hear about how things will turn out between the Black Hebrew Israelites, the Indigenous People Group and the Covington boys. But which story line will you believe? The story you choose to believe will either encourage your actions or fuel your cynicism. Is MAGA bad (one journalist says, “MAGA hats are the new white hoods”)? Is this all fake news? Is this a conspiracy thing to try to shape public opinion that private religious schools ought to be shut down? After all, wasn’t the Second Lady, Karen Pence recently lambasted for applying to teach art in a private Christian school that bans homosexual behavior? But I see in this story an excellent example of us in the 21st Century. We live in this culture, at this point in human history. We were not around when the world began. And we will be long gone when it’s all said and done. Like setting down in the middle of the story I just mentioned. Every person in every era of history has had to face the reality of their lives and living in their culture. And so, we all ask the big questions at one time or another. Where did I come from? Where am I going? Why am I here? And how we answer them all depends on the power of a story. To be specific—creation stories. Throughout history and among every culture, creation stories are ways in which we attempt to answer those big questions. Time fails us if I were to even give a very short description of all the creation stories that have been discovered. So, what story or stories give us in this culture the best answers to the big questions? I can think of 2. Two stories that are the most compelling and trump all the others. One is the story of naturalism and the other one is story of theism. In short, naturalism means all things got here without any kind of a god. Theism of course, is just the opposite. God had a hand in how all things came to be—all the way from him winding up the universe, like a clock and then sitting back and letting it run its course—that’s one side of the spectrum, to everything being part of God and is even an expression of God—that’s the other side. We are going to talk more about these very powerful stories today and next week. Chances are, all of us have placed our faith in either one story or the other. And the story that we have placed our faith in shows up in how we actually live our lives from day to day. If we are committed to naturalism, we will live one way. If we are committed to theism, we will live another way. Make sense? Such is the power of the story we believe. Don’t mishear me though. When I say story, even in relation to God’s accounts, I’m not making them both equal. Naturalism and theism are not equal stories. But they function the same way. And we will see this as we go through Genesis 1 and 2. On to the questions of why Genesis, why now? Simple answer—the learning and the knowing of God never stops. As a church, we have never studied through the entire book of Genesis. As I reminded us earlier, the last book we studied all the way through was Revelation. The end of the Bible. It is instructive how the Jews treat the Torah—the first 5 books of the Bible. Every Sabbath—Saturday, they read together the selected passage. Like many Christian churches, the passage of the week is read in every synagogue. When the last passage of Deuteronomy is scheduled to be read on a certain Sabbath, what happens? All faithful Jews celebrate a joyous event called “Simchat Torah”, and what they do is have two readings—the last passage in Deuteronomy and the first reading in Genesis. This symbolizes the truth that the learning of God’s ways never ends. A great idea! The truth is that reading through God’s word from Genesis to Revelation is not a bucket list item. It is our spiritual daily bread. Remember how the Lord Jesus himself said, in quoting Moses in Deuteronomy that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So for Grace United, going through Genesis after Revelation means that the learning of God’s ways never stops. And how we need to be reminded of, and live out God’s ways in our day. Who we are accountable to, how God made us, what marriage is, the institution of true government, the beginning of salvation’s plan, all of this and more are right here in Genesis. So, let’s savor this book of God’s truth stories! Before we read God’s account of how things came to be, let’s take a look at the context of Genesis. Again, I’m talking about the cultural context surrounding this book. I mentioned earlier that every culture has a creation story to help those in that culture try to make sense of the big questions in life. Now, I will be the first to admit that I’m no expert on creation stories—some call them creation myths. But from what little I do know, there are themes running through many of them—themes that the gods of their creation stories have no answer for. Let me give you 3, and 2 of them have to do with fear. The first is the fear of chaos. Of course, the ancient people in the world did not have a whole lot of knowledge about things, but they did have a lot more than what we give them credit for—and we will get into that in the later chapters. But the gods could not control chaos in the creation stories. The gods were also untrustworthy and cruel. And so chaos was something the people had to deal with—without success. The second fear they had was darkness. They were deathly afraid of that. And that fear of darkness even carried over into Jesus’ day. One of the ways Jesus described hell was “outer darkness”. And third theme was, believe it or not political propaganda, used by the rulers to keep their people in line. Sort of reminds us of today, with Political Correctness taking center stage here. But let me remind us of something very important. This account was in competition, as it were with all the other creation stories of Moses’ day. Again, every culture had one. As we read through it, see if you can discover how God inspired Moses to deal with the chaos and darkness and political propaganda of his day. Before we actually walk through God’s creation story, part 1, let me give you something that is vital to understand: Genesis 1 and 2 are stories, just like Genesis 3-50. Genesis 1 and 2 is absolute truth, just like Genesis 3-50. I highlight this in bold letters because there are a lot of people who treat the 1st 2 chapters differently than the rest of the book. Well-meaning Christians, and there are a lot of them look at Genesis 1-2 as though it were a science textbook. Hear me when I say this. I’m not bashing many dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. They are doing their level best to make God’s true creation story the most compelling one to win over the hearts and minds who have adopted the rival story in our culture—naturalism and with that, evolution. And I will be the first to admit that I was very staunch at treating Genesis 1 and 2 as different than the rest of the book. But I discovered there are no indications in these chapters that we can treat them differently than the rest of Genesis. So, we need to see these true accounts, not as hard science but as theology. God did not inspire Moses to write Genesis with the scientific method in mind, and Moses did not even know who Darwin was! Now before you tune me out and brand me as a heretic, let me give you a sneak peak into what we are going to talk about next week. By understanding Genesis 1-2 in the way Moses wrote it, we have a much more compelling argument to defeat naturalism and its spawn, evolution, than seeing these chapters as hard science could ever do. Don’t believe me? I am convinced you will when we finish next week. Again, we need to see Genesis 1-2 as theology, not as hard science. We need to see Genesis 1-2 as a superior story of all the other creation stories that were floating around in Moses’ day, and even after. God is the center of the story in Chapters 1 and 2, not science. One other thing we need to know as we read through Genesis 1-2, and especially 1. The structure of this chapter goes something like this: God provides a summary up front, then fills in the details. So, summary up front and then details. Ok? Let’s read. Genesis 1:1–31: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Let’s stop right there. Notice God’s summary statement—He created everything. The rest of the chapter will describe what He did create. Let’s continue with v.2: 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. Let’s stop here. Remember what I said about the other creation stories and the issue of chaos? This is God’s description of the chaos. God inspired Moses to include this description to let everybody know that He is sovereign over all. He is in absolute control of things. Again, if Genesis 1 was hard science, we would have a hard time with this. We would have to conclude that God actually created the chaos. And it would be a contradiction of v.31 where God’s assessment of everything He created was in His words, “very good.” At this point in the story, we can see God in essence saying, “I am the Creator. I am in absolute sovereign control.” V.3: And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. Let’s stop here. A summary statement: activities of the first creation day. Later we will see what God will fill the light and darkness with. Which brings up the other point. The ancients were scared to death of darkness. Later we will see how God communicates that He is in sovereign control even of the darkness. And in v.1, like the ultimate artist, God outlined the huge picture He’s painting—the creation of heaven and earth. Now, we can see how God is working within the outline and emphasizing a smaller section of the picture: in this case, it’s the heavens. We will see in moment what God will fill the heavens with. Let’s move on. V.6: And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. Once again, God is giving a summary statement—in this case not the heavens, but heaven, otherwise known as the sky. And again, God is outlining a smaller part of the big picture. We will see in a moment what He will fill the sky with. Let’s move on. V.9: And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Yet another divine summary statement, only this time it is the earth, both in its wet parts and dry parts. In the next few verses we will see how God now begins to fill in what he has outlined regarding the earth part of His creation masterpiece. V.11: And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. So, what do we see so far in God’s account of creation? The biggest picture frame if you will: He created all there is. Then within the frame, He describes what we could say are the outlines of 3 pictures in a picture: the heavens, the sky and the earth. All this in 3 creation days. Let’s move on to see how God fills in these outlines. V.14: And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. Day Four—did you catch it? God went “back out” so to speak, and filled in the darkness and light, with the sun—the ruler of the day and the moon—the ruler of what? The night! Just like God declared He has absolute sovereign rule over the chaos, He also declared He has absolute sovereign rule over the night, even setting “night lights” out to let everybody know who is in charge of the day and the night. People don’t need to fear! The true and living God is in charge! Let’s move on to see how God fills not only the heavens but heaven and the water part of the earth. He does this on creation day five. V. 20: And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. So what did God say? A great word of blessing: “Fill it!” The sky and the water, fill it with creatures suitable for their environment. Fill the sky and water with superabundance. That brings me glory. Now, for creation day 6. V.24: And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Once again, God blessed His newly created land animals, “fill the earth! For that brings me glory.” And now, for God’s “finest hour!” V. 26: 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.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 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.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. Let me just list for us several truths about the highest creatures God made. First, God made man in His own image—to reflect His glory on earth. Second, as His image bearers and representatives, God gave man meaningful work—to have dominion—literally a delegated authority over all the earth. Third, man is made up of male and female. Together. Meaning that both males and females are completely equal in essence. At this point, no strife, no self-will. Perfect harmony. God created man and woman with no sin. These are the purposes and the identity God gave the first 2 humans—and God has not withdrawn these purposes nor identity. This has absolutely tremendous implications, as we will see in a moment. But let me remind us of how the other creation stories were used as political propaganda. Kings of other nations were not lost on these stories. And they used them in essence, this way: “I am God’s representative. I bear God’s image. To obey me is to obey the gods.” And of course, the king had the right to destroy those who disobeyed and often did. But do you see it? The creation stories of other cultures only put up those in power as image bearers with the authority of God. God’s account was radical, for everybody God created was and is an image bearer of God, not just those in political power. And what is God’s assessment of all He made? V. 31: And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. What does this say about God? If what He made is very good, then He must be very good! I will finish up the God’s creation story next week. I will also show how God’s story refutes the other story that has captured the hearts and minds of so many in our culture: naturalism. So, you don’t want to miss, Creation Part 2. So, what can we take away from this? God is good and He is in charge. It’s been said, that if we get Genesis 1:1 right, everything else will fall into place. Second, there is an answer to the chaos and darkness, and the fear that comes along with it—the Lord. Those who have kept track have told us that the command to fear not occurs in Scripture 366 times—one for every day of the year, and even for leap years! The fact that the Lord is sovereign and the fact that this is His world brings me a lot of comfort and stability. It’s no secret that the culture of death is firmly on the march with Governor Cuomo signing into law that Satanic abortion law. When he did, the gallery cheered. But on Friday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds seemed to counteract Cuomo by signing their version of the “heartbeat bill”—as in abortion is illegal when a heartbeat is detected. With the passage of the bill in Iowa, the country was up in arms. Lawsuits are promised. This is the tip of the iceberg, and we are on the Titanic. But this is no time for fear. God is in control, even if we have trouble seeing it. Third, every one of us are of equal worth and value before God. So, the challenge is, do I see, do you see every person as having equal worth and value, fellow image bearers like you are? Like I am? A good test is to see how difficult it is to obey what our Lord said about murder and forgiveness. Matthew 5:21–22: “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” We may think that we haven’t killed anybody, but when we demean and diss others by blanket statements—racist and homophobic and other epithets come to mind, this is the spirit of murder that has found a place in our hearts. If we can objectify a person by labeling them as less than human, could it be that we do not see them as equals created in God’s image just like you and me? Let’s address the issue of forgiveness. The Lord taught us to pray what we commonly call “The Lord’s Prayer”. In it He tells us, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.” What is our Lord telling us? We are asking God to forgive us of our sins against Him to the same degree we forgive others of their sins against us. Now, we interpret our refusal to forgive others as a loss of fellowship with the Lord. We reason, “We are saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ, so how can salvation hinge on our refusal to forgive those who have hurt us?” On the other hand, the Lord ends the prayer this way in Matthew 6:14–15: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” What if, in our desire to be balanced in our theology, we have gotten Jesus’ statement wrong and watered it down? What if salvation does depend on whether or not we have forgiven others the wrong they have done to us? Because what if our forgiveness of other truly reflects God’s having done a supernatural work of grace in us to be able to forgive others? And if we refuse, that means He hasn’t done that work in us in the first place? I don’t know about you, but this haunts me. But if I am a true follower of Jesus, wouldn’t I commit myself to doing whatever it takes to forgive others, for after all, how much sin has God through Christ forgiven me? Food for thought. Challenge for this week—obey the command to forgive others to the same degree the Lord has forgiven you, for we all bear His image and likeness. Genesis 1—God’s story—in the books, so to speak. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Yours O Lord is the Kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Now, let’s go and live as though our God is indeed King and Lord, and gracious and merciful Savior!