In the Beginining

Good morning everyone, it is such a great morning and we all had a great week I trust. This week everyone had the opportunity to be with family and have a time of thanksgiving. You had turkey and other good things Im sure. As for me, well, we had brisket for Thanksgiving. This was the first time I have ever made brisket, so it wasn’t the best, but it was still pretty stinking good. I enjoyed it greatly. Anyway, I trust you all had a great week as well.

We just finished a series called Radical Generosity and through that series we were able to see some radical generosity, so I want to share with you all a couple of amazing things that took place within the last month or so. First of all we started to collect boxes for Operation Christmas Child where boxes are sent all over the world in order to give missionaries the opportunity to bless kids and families, and more importantly the opportunity to share the Gospel with kids and families in their home countries and in their native languages. When we started this project I challenged you all to bring in 25 boxes filled that we would then deliver to Samaritan Ministries to take around the globe. The first few weeks went by and we had 1 or two boxes brought in. Then we came into last week and it looked like we might hit around 20-22 boxes and I thought that was amazing. I was so excited to get to that number to be honest. Well, then you all blew me away, by the end of the day with some last minute donations and online box purchases, as a church we hit 26 boxes that were given away to kids overseas. Guys, that is amazing! I want to thank you for that, but I also want to thank God that we had the opportunity to impact that many kids all over the globe with the Hope of Jesus in their lives.

So that was awesome....Then there is something else that happened. As a church we have been working on the lobby redecoration for this past year. It has been an expensive project, but most of the funds have been focused on the repair of walls and painting that we had done. We got new lights and made the room much brighter. Then we had a couple of ladies that were focused on the design and oversight of the redecoration itself. These ladies poured hours and hours into this project. Then they also managed the finances of this project, which is actually more than they originally commited to doing. However, they stepped up to make things happen. They have stewarded these finances so well that we have been able to come to a place of being almost finished for well under the original projections. In the last few weeks I have asked the ladies how much more we needed in order to finish the project. They came back last week letting me know that they felt we needed $350 in order to complete the redecoration of the lobby space. Well, I want to let everyone know that over the past week we have had the $350 pledged and given to complete the renovation of this space. Now, I want to take a brief moment reminding us all why we decided to do this project.

As a church we are making an impact on the community around us, which means that we will have people from the community attend the church from time to time. We wanted to make the space out there so inviting that those that would visit would feel welcome and calm as they entered into this space. Well, you should know that it does in fact work. We have had comments from some that the space is welcoming and inviting and that is the purpose that we were seeking to accomplish. I am excited because just like the boxes that we are sending around the world will give an opportunity to impact lives around the world, the work that we have accomplished here will give us more opportunity to impact lives right here in Leaf River.

With all that said, we are starting a brand new series this morning called Hope Reborn. Why did we call it Hope Reborn? Well, I think that this year has been an increasingly tough year for many people. We have had bad news after bad news dumped on us this entire year. We are still in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and we will be dealing with this still for the foreseeable future it seems. People have lost their livelihood and their families. There has been an amazing amount of civil unrest throughout the summer that has brought to light some moments of racial inequality as well as violence that has resulted in the death of many innocent people. Now we have had an election where more people have voted than every before in an election and there is still dispute over what the results of that election are. Many have felt that there is no hope for the future as we go into 2021. Many feel that things could not possibly every be good again and that they have lost so much, whether the lost a loved one, or lost confidence in the organizations around them. There seems to be a feeling of hopelessness around our country. Well, that feeling is not wrong…As a matter of fact that is the feeling that man has felt throughout history. That feeling is actually a more than a feeling for billions of people worldwide.

This Christmas season we will be taking a journey through hope and hopelessness as seen in Scripture. We will see the original hope that God created and the hopelessness that man ran too. My hope is that through this season we will all be reminded of the good that God designed and make our choices based on His hope, rather than our hopelessness. Join me as we start this morning by looking at the very beginning of the story. Turn to Genesis 1:1 and lets look at...

Creation

So, this is a story that I am fairly sure you all have heard like 1 million times. So, Im not going to try and retell you the same story, but I am going to try and show you some perspective into what God can do. I am going to attempt to teach you about the hope that is found in creation this morning. Let’s start int he very beginning together. Take a look at Gen. 1:1-2

Genesis 1:1–2 ESV

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.

“Berashit bera Elohim” —This is the way you pronounce the Hebrew at the very beginning of Scriptures. Taken together it literally means “In beginning God created.” You could also translate this as at the time of the beginning, God created, or when the beginning happened, God created. All of this basically means the same thing. This is the very first recorded action that ever took place. This is an action that took place before time was even a thing. This is an action that took place before anything else had ever happened. This is the beginning of the story...

We also see that at this time, the Earth was formless and void. Now I want you to picture for a moment what something would look like if it was formless and void, or empty. Think about water that is floating and nothing is there to hold its shape. Think about the chaos that would exist in that state. Maybe you have seen some movies with water in space and it kind of just floats going in every direction. Now think about the water that goes against the other water and how that will produce waves, and crashes like an ocean during a storm. This is a picture of the state that existed at this time when God created things. God created an existence, but it was formless and empty.

Now, as we look through Genesis 1 this morning I am not going to teach on every single day or event. Maybe that can be a future sermon series. For this morning I am going to key in on a few specifics that I want to make sure you know, and then I want to talk about the basic concept of how creation has been ordered. I think that as we look through even this passage, we are going to walk away feeling encouraged and maybe challenged a little as believers.

First of all I want to look briefly at the format that God used to create everything. In order to create hope God used...

Six Days

Let’s take a look at those 6 days together. First of all we should be able to understand that there is an order to everything that God does. Many times when we look at our own lives, it may not feel that way, but all the way back to creation we see God doing things in a specific order. First of all God splits apart this unordered darkness into God created 3 realms on days 1-3.

Day 1—God created time using his glorious light and establishing day and night

Day 2— God created the sky and the seas by separating the chaotic waters we talked about earlier

Day 3— God created land by brining it out of the waters. Then he offered a bonus act of creation and invited plants and trees to begin taking shape

After God created these realms, then on days 5-6 God fills these realms.

Day 4— God filled time with the sun moon and stars and uses them to separate day and night.

Day 5— God fills the sky and sees with birds of the air and fish of the sea.

Day 6— God fills land with living creatures emerging out of the land. Then he again offers a bonus act of creation, like in day 3, when he created man and woman.

So you see, it really is fascinating to think about how God took this crazy chaos and created order within these 6 days. It is beautiful and shows Gods power and glory as he is in control of all chaos.

It’s interesting to think that he is in control of all chaos isn’t it? I mean I said earlier that this year has been rough and we haven’t talked about the chaos of this year previously. I thought the murder hornets were the worst until I heard about some turtles that had fallen into the sewer of New York. They have grown to be human size and learned karate…I mean, thats just crazy…Oh wait, that was just a cartoon :)

Really though this year as been very chaotic for most people. From job stress to family stress it feels completely out of control. Have you ever felt like something you were experiencing was out of your control? I can remember a few years ago back in 2006. My family had made a decision to move to Lafayette, Indiana in order to serve a church there as the part time youth pastor. I visited Lafayette and interviewed with a few places and made a decision on a job. I ended up just transferring my job to Lafayette from South Bend so the transition was simple. This was a good paying job and housing was included as part of my compensation. Well, we got moved in and I started work, only to be let go like 2 days later. I won’t bore you with the details although you are welcome to ask. This was hard and I remember fighting for my job and nothing I did could change what happened. It didn’t seem fair, that after working for a company for 3 years I was being let go effective immediately. I remember sitting on the side of my bed and I lost it. I was responsible to provide for my family, but here we were about to be homeless. I spent time praying and crying out to God asking him to intervene, but he never did. Well, at least not the way I wanted him to. You see, things felt really chaotic at that time. We were just moved, Isabel had gotten a little sick, and by a little sick I mean she stopped breathing. I lost my job, I questioned if that meant that the church was going to fire me because I lost my job so quickly. I didn’t know where we would move. I began looking for a new job and finally found one making significantly less than I was making previously, and now we had to find housing as well. Everything looked like a mess.

You know what though…when things are chaotic, we serve a God that brings order to that chaos. That is exactly what God did. He directed me to housing that we could afford and that met our needs for that time. Fast forward another 6 months or so and we found a house that we loved and we wanted to move in there. We put an offer in on that house and by God’s grace we were approved, both for the loan and for our offer. Fast forward further we are having youth group in our house and teaching the Gospel in this place. Continue to fast forward and we are baptizing people in the pool out back because the church didn’t have a baptistry. All of that took place because of the chaos that we were in that day on the side of the bed. God took the chaos of our lives, and created order, and used that order for his purposes that were much larger than our own.

I know that we all have a story like this if we really think about it. I know that there have been times in your life that you felt like things could not possibly get any worse, and maybe they would never be better as well. Maybe God was just going to leave you in this place of chaos forever…or maybe you didn’t think he could or would care enough to do anything about it. Then when you look back now you are able to see the chaos of your life and the work that God has done in order to bring that order. Maybe you are in one of those places of chaos right now, and you feel that there is no hope. Things will never change. Maybe God is going to bring order to the chaos of your life, but you need to allow him to do it. You know that day I sat on the bed in tears I didn’t know what God would potentially do, however, I knew that I needed to rely on him to do it, because what I was doing wasn’t working. What about you? Is what you are doing working, or do you need to rely on him to bring order to the chaos of your life.

Theres something else that I want to bring your attention to in the creation story this morning. Did you notice that consistently as God was brining order to the chaos of creation, he saw and said it was...

Good

What does that mean to be good? Well, to be frank, it means that what he saw was good. That his creation was right. That at this point the way the order appeared, was good. The thing is that we can very rarely say the same thing, right? I mean when is the last time that you looked at something you did and saw that it was good, as in it could not be any better. As in, it was perfect. You see, when God describes his creation as good he is giving it the description of a high quality, and listen to this, a moral excellence.

You see, the physical universe is a good place because God made it. God found satisfaction in his labor. This is the first instance where God separated the twin realms of light and darkness, day and night. God’s activity in the material world parallels the role he also performs in the moral universe, that of the righteous Judge distinguishing between those who live in moral light and those who do not. We see that is

1 Thessalonians 5:5 ESV

For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness.

So God saw what he created and it was good. God’s moral righteous judgement is good. It doesn’t stop there though. God divided and filled every realm of his creation and then he created man. Man is the bonus creation on day 6. Man is also a very special creation. After God created man he is it was...

Very Good

Why is man very good? Take a quick look at the very first poem in the Bible in

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

I love this poem, actually if you go back a verse then we can see God creating and giving purpose to man.

Genesis 1:26 ESV

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.”

God created man to have dominion over his creation. God created man to maintain the order that he created, and it was very good. Later in Gen 2:19 we see that God gave the task of naming all of the beast of the ground.

Genesis 2:19 ESV

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.

Now in the ancient world the act of naming an object, place, or person indicated that you held control over it. You see that God holds control over all of creation, but then he gave the control of the animals and plants to man to control. Actually there is something else that I want you to see. God made man in his image and his likeness. He created man to maintain the order that he has brought from chaos, and man is very good.

Man was created to be the visible representation of the invisible God.

Make it Personal:

Day 6 of creation is an important day. That is the day that man is created. That is the day that God’s creation was perfected. That is the day that Hope was Born.Now, we all have a choice to make this Christmas season. We can take this season to make sure that we are focused on ourselves and what we want, or what we think we need. Or, we can take the purpose of being the visible representation of the invisible God, and show the world the hope of Christ. So what will you do?