In the Beginning

If you will, please turn in your Bible or your Bible app, to the first verse in the entire Bible, Genesis 1, verse 1.

PRAY

Background: It was the custom in ancient times to name a book by its opening word. Beresheeth - “In the Beginning” in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, what we call the Old Testament, that is, of course, the first book of the Law, the Torah, sometimes called the Pentateuch. 

When the Old Testament was translated into the Greek, in what we now call the Septuagint, around 250 BC, the Greek word was used, which both the Latin and English translators adapted. Genesis - a word we use for beginnings.

Most religions around the world have a Creation story. The Babylonians believed their god, Marduk, slayed a dragon named Tiamat, and by cutting her in half created the sky and the earth.

The Greeks believed that before their gods, the Titans existed and created everything.

The Cherokee believed the earth was suspended from the sky on great ropes or vines, the Hindus believe the earth was created by the god Brahma who hatched from an egg then began creating good and evil, the list goes on.

Some more ridiculous than the others, some eerily similar to the story we hold to.

But the one that has stood the test of time was written down by a Hebrew shepherd, who grew up in the house of an Egyptian king, a murderer on the run, who’d wandered the desert, and led the nation of Israel to freedom.

The Jewish and Christian creation stories, of course, were penned by Moses. So read with me as it begins in Genesis 1:1.

Text: Genesis 1:1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

Intro: 10 words in English, it is just 7 words in Hebrew, it is the basis for everything.

When Darwin wrote the Origin of Species, he only elaborated on what was a quickly growing philosophical line of thinking: That God does not exist, man was not created, and that life, the universe, and everything was one elaborate accident.

The story so far. In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very unhappy and has widely been regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Adams, of course, was an atheist. And, while he was a gifted writer, I believe he failed to grasp the true wonder of all creation. Or, perhaps felt he didn’t need to.

Often, as Christians, we have this discussion with unbelieving friends. We encounter those who refuse to believe in God, but if they don’t believe in the God of the Bible, then they should have some opinion as to how and why we all got there.

Hence the need for atheism, for Darwin, for Marx, and countless others, for them to try and disprove the concept of a Creator God.  Without a purpose to creation, we lose our purpose, and a person without purpose, is a person with no hope - and people without hope are easier to rule.

And if, they can discredit or disprove Genesis 1:1, the Bible will begin to fall like a stack of dominos because on that one simple verse, everything else depends.

You see, the question is: If there is a God, what was His purpose for creating? As one of those created beings, what then, is my purpose? What if I don’t like that purpose, what happens if I reject that God?

It begins to tie into a theme we saw in last week’s sermon - from God everything else depends. When we believe in Him, when we glorify Him, when we love Him… a different stack of dominos begins to fall…

We become satisfied in Him, as we worship Him, and love others because of His love for us… 

If you’re taking notes, you should write this down and take it with you... 

Thesis: The truth of all Scripture, your eternal salvation, in fact all of our history is dependent (quite literally) on this sentence: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

I say all of history because much of history, science, everything we know originates from someone, somewhere, believing these words. 

I say your salvation is dependent, as is all of the Bible, because without the foundation of Genesis 1:1, the rest of the Bible has no grounds for trustworthiness.

And so we begin with...

I. In the Beginning

In the beginning...

We see these words elsewhere in Scripture. In John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Often, as Creation is concerned, this passage gets brushed aside. “Oh, John was just trying to mirror Moses in Genesis here, to show Christ’s divinity.”

No, actually, he’s exegeting Scripture here. He’s doing it beautifully, in a way a mind as dim as mine could never begin to sort out, but it’s amazing how thoroughly the disciples knew the Torah.

You see, what John is doing is exposing what Genesis 1:1 has already said.

In the beginning… At the origin of time as we see it, God was already there. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He preexisted time itself. As the Psalmist wrote, “Of old You founded the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands.” (Psalm 102:25)

What’s interesting is that when the writer of Hebrews quotes this passage later, he will say it like this: “And, You, Lord, in the beginning… laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of Your hands.” (Hebrews 1:10)

You see, “In the beginning” gives us a time of reference as to when the events occurred from the bystander’s viewpoint, but God was already there.

If I say, for example, I’m going to pick up Evie from school at 3:30 pm, I don’t magically materialize at the school at 3:30 pm. As her father, I’ve already existed, I’m likely there before 3:30, in fact sometimes I’m waiting 30 minutes ahead of time so I can get a good parking spot.

God does not magically materialize at the point of Creation, either. He’s already there. He is eternal. And Jesus - GOD THE SON - is eternal with Him, as John points out.

Now, people might say, “I just don’t see that in Scripture, it’s not in Genesis.” Yes it is!!! 

The Hebrew word “bara”, created, which we will dive more into in the second portion of this sermon, is used for a plural subject. However, the word for God here is singular. 

Because, as Deuteronomy 6:4 points out, “GOD IS ONE”.

God’s nature is hinted at even here - that His triune, or the Trinity, nature of God in 3 persons is on display. 

We’ve covered this, we’ve discussed the Trinity at length almost a year ago. But this is something we can not miss because as I’ve said, it’s foundational and it’s found even in Genesis 1:1.

And if we’re to look at the beginning, this passage makes it completely clear that God existed before the beginning.

Scientists will tell you that everything must have an origin, a beginning. Typically, that beginning is referred to as “the Big Bang” and we often reply, “Yes, and God said ‘BANG’ and it was.” 

But don’t just brush that idea off as a funny retort. Mathematically, it makes more sense that there’s a reason for everything, right? This stool did not grow out of the ground, it was designed, the wood was cut, and nailed and glued together, and placed on this platform.

The same is true of the universe. The Probability of an accident that creates life is infinitely far more unlikely than some external Force creating life. 

We often call this the “Fine Tuning” argument of the universe - that somehow the universe worked out, so that life can exist.

Fine tuning doesn’t happen without a Fine Tuner. 

William Lane Craig describes this in what’s called the Kalam cosmological argument which goes like this:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause. 2. The universe began to exist. 3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

SO….

4. If the universe has a cause, then an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists who, without the universe, is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful. 5. Therefore, an uncaused, personal Creator of the universe exists.

In short: God’s existence is proven by the mere fact that the universe itself exists.

Everything has a cause, a creator, but the buck has to stop somewhere - and has to have a timeless Being that produced it - That Being is God.

“WhAt AbOuT aLiEnS?”

I love Star Wars, but it’s fiction. Okay?

If we say Aliens did it, then we have to ask who created the aliens! B if we come to the logical conclusion that a beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, and infinitely powerful being did it - that is the final and logical ending.

And you can dismiss this, you can say, “Well pastor that’s just philosophy, that’s just a bunch of gobbledygook, that’s just over my head,” but it’s not! 

It is Biblical, it’s rational thought. Believing in God as our Creator is NOT irrational.

When we run into an atheist, or an agnostic, who says “We have no way of knowing there is a God”, this is a very basic, simple way to show them that’s not true. It’s Biblical.

And, the idea of Christ being eternal with God, as God, is what got Him crucified.

When He discussed Abraham rejoicing, to see the day of the Messiah, and the Pharisees said “You’re not even 50 years old, yet you’ve seen Abraham?”

And what was Jesus’s reply? “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” (John 8:56-58)

Do you understand the importance of His words? Exodus 3:14 - the I AM is who sent Moses to deliver Israel.

What’s interesting is that the Greek here literally means, “before Abraham even came into being”, before Abraham was even a thought, Jesus existed!

“Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” (v. 59)

Now, previously in John’s Gospel, Jesus had called God his Father, and that really upset the Jews because that meant He was putting Himself on equal footing as God. 

John writes, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. (John 5:18)

That’s John 5, but in John 8, He’s going to a whole different extreme, claiming to be eternal.

And this is where we begin to understand something about the person of The Son.

The Bethlehem manger did not make Him God; He did not grow into Godhood; He did not become God after His resurrection; the fact is, Jesus was God before He was ever conceived.

“Although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but [He humbled] Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7, Greek meaning inserted). 

In the beginning, God… and that includes Jesus. That includes the Holy Spirit, as we read in verse 2 of Genesis 1, “And the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” (2b)

And that same Spirit fills us, guides us, leads us… as Christians we can be baptized into the Holy Spirit and He will equip us to be Christ’s witnesses “even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:8b)

In the beginning, before it all, God was there, and God IS there.

And in that beginning, looking through all of eternity, He began to create.

II. God Created

In the beginning, God created...

The first thing we must notice here is that God, Himself, is the subject of the first verb in all of the Bible. Why?

Because everything that follows is about Him.

We are not the heroes of the Bible, He is. Any theology that lowers God, and elevates man, is not Biblical. In fact, I believe it’s satanic. 

It echoes the words of the snake that said, “Did God really say that? No, God lied. You can be like God!” (That’s Genesis 3:1-5 paraphrased)

Satan makes God out to be a liar and promises humanity they can rise above their Creator.

We are not the heroes of the Bible, yet it is written for our benefit, in order that we might know, relate to, and glorify Him. 

If anything we are the villains of our story, or the damsel in distress in need of saving.

So God stepped out of heaven, died on a cross, in order to rescue us from the snake’s lies and deceit, and the sin that corrupts.

One commentary states, “He is not just the subject of the first verb, He is the subject of more verbs than any other character in the entire Bible. and performs a wider variety of activities than any other being in the Bible.” (Bergen, R. D. (2017). Genesis.)

And God does what no human does in the Bible - he “creates”. The Hebrew word I already referenced, “bara”, and no human in all of Scripture is attached to this verb.

Now, we often hear people say, “Declare this” or “speak that”, and most people don’t mean that in a "bad” way, it’s just another “Christanese” way of saying, “I’m standing on God’s word, and holding Him to what He has said.”

But I hope to clarify something, there are those who do mean it in a different way, as though speech creates things out of nothing (which only God does) - or, because they say it, God has to do it. God is like their puppet, not their master (You see the dangers of that teaching?)

And, to defend that position, they will often point out the Bible does say, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,” but that’s used out of context. 

It’s found in Proverbs 18:21, but read the whole portion of Scripture that surrounds it: “With the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach will be satisfied; He will be satisfied with the product of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.” (18:20-21)

That is definitely not saying we have the power to speak things into existence “ex nihilo” in the same manner God creates. It’s merely making it clear that there are consequences to what we say, how we say it, and who we say it to. 

And we could go further into James, and what he writes about the tongue, but that’s a discussion for another time.

But God speaks the universe into existence. He’s not modifying something that was just sitting there beforehand.

He’s not taking something from a junkyard and fixing it up. The universe is not a 1967 Chevy Impala.

No the Bible makes this clear - He made it all out of nothing!

Illustration - JOKE: Get Your OWN DIRT!”

Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth all their host.” (v. 9) “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.”

Hebrews 11:3 tells us, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

Only God creates something out of nothing. In the beginning, God created…

“By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.”  (Genesis 2:2)

He rested, it’s the Hebrew word “shavath”, and it means He stopped. 

But it must have only lasted for that day, because what happens next? He plants a garden (2:8). The word plants is the Hebrew “nateh” and it means “He established”. 

And we know God will go on to do more creating, more new things, but the most beautiful thing of all that He creates, the most beautiful creation He still does every day.

No, not a sunset, not a coastline, not a mountain range…

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW CREATURE [the New King James says “New Creation”]; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

If you want to see the most beautiful miracle God still does for His glory, it’s the new believer.

It’s the Christian, who forsakes this world and follows after Him. The new heart, renewed mind of a believer.

He can turn water into wine, He can feed 5,000 people with a couple of fish and some bread, and give sight to the blind - all 3 of those, by the way, involved creating new things out of nothing.

New grapes that didn’t exist in the water, new fish and new bread, enough that people were full, new synapses within the human eye and brain…

But the new heart He gives the believer… the freedom and the strength to cast off the weight of sin that has held them down.

That is the most beautiful creation we witness in the lives of every person who says, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner…”

“And have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him” (Colossians 3:10)

Just because He rested on the 7th day doesn’t mean He was done creating. In the beginning, God created, and He still creates today. 

And finally...

III. The Heavens and The Earth

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

When God shows up at the beginning to the end of the book of Job, He asks that poor, suffering man a rhetorical and, what appears to be, almost a sarcastic question. 

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, Who sets its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it?” (Job 38:4-5)

He will go on, “Have you ever in  your life commanded the morning, And caused the dawn to know its place?” (38:12)

“Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, And guide the Bear with her satellites? Do you know the ordinances of heavens, or fix their rule over the earth?” Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that an abundance of water will cover you?” Can you send forth lightnings that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?” (38:32-35)

It’s interesting to note that Genesis says He created the heavenS - plural. And the earth - singular.

He created the sky, but He also created everything beyond it. The Hebrew word is “shamayim”, and it means both the visible sky and the invisible universe beyond it.

How vast is space? Any Star Trek fan can begin to give you an idea, they’ve made enough TV episodes off its exploration, but scientists theorize that even now the universe is still expanding.

How big, and how great, must a Being be to have merely spoke and all of that began to exist?

It’s no wonder God said through the prophet Isaiah, “To whom will you liken Me that I would be his equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:25-26)

And yet, He creates the whole earth, for you and me, that mankind may rule over it, and enjoy it, and from it, worship Him.

In his commentary on Genesis, R. Kent Hughes writes, “The force of Moses’ words, ‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth’ was not lost on the children of the exodus. The night skies of Sinai, the diaphanous veil of the Milky Way, the paths of the comets, and the intermittent meteor showers sang to them of an omnipotent Creator who cared for his people. No wonder the poetry! How we need to rise above the congestion and smog of our existence and see our Creator, our cosmic caregiver.

The Heavens and the Earth. Everything in existence begins with Him. If someone were able to subvert that, or disprove it, everything after verse one of chapter one of the Bible begins to fade into unimportance.

It becomes a nice book of stories. But if we believe, as the original readers did, that Creation began with the Triune God of the Bible, the rest of the Bible begins to make more sense.

I said a while back that those in the Reformed/Calvinist camp have a view of the glory of God we’re often lacking in Pentecostal churches, but truly they shouldn’t.

The full, five-point Calvinist view of God is that He picks and chooses who is saved, has to have everything in a plan that ultimately robs human beings of their own free will, and that we all have to act in accordance with the blueprints God has set in motion.

However, we - as Arminian Pentecostals - believe human beings are free moral agents, and if we believe that, yet still know that God’s prophetic promises will still be fulfilled, then I’d argue we have an even larger view of God, one that takes into account human free will, yet still knows that blueprint will still come to its ultimate conclusion.

I think Isaiah proves this when God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (55:8-9)

But nowhere does God say “But you don’t have thoughts that are not your own.”

You see, the point I’m trying to make is that IF God is the Creator (and we, as Christians, believe He is) and IF God is the all powerful being the Bible says He is (and we believe He is), then Genesis 1:1 not only tells us the origin of everything…

It should convince us to trust Him, to worship Him, glorify Him, and to love Him.

Because if such a Being exists, and IF this God is Who He says He is… then it must also follow that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and [the apostles] saw His glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14)

The same God of John 1:14

And THE SAME GOD who created the world, “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

The same God of John 3:16

Because of Who and What God is, Because He is not willing “that any should perish but for ALL to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) 

The same God of 2 Peter 3:9.

Because He is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;” (Exodus 34:6)

The same God of Exodus 34:6.

He is the only One worthy of being called God. 

It is His Holy Spirit who draws us to Him, and through His Son redeems us, that we may be His adopted children.

To reject the premise of Genesis 1:1, is to reject Him, and to reject Him, is to choose an eternity without Him.

Conclusion:

I’m going to move to close, but this morning, I don’t often do this and typically but I feel led to do it this morning…

I’d ask you all to stand, with every head bowed, every eye closed.

If you’re here - we’re going to pray in just a moment and we’re going to end the live feed as well but I want everyone watching to be able to hear this - if you’re hearing my voice, I want to make something very clear to you.

God is incredible. He is vast. He is powerful. He is terrifying. But 1 John tells us, God is love. (1 John 4:8b)

If you’re here, or you’re watching at home, and you have never accepted God’s love. Or maybe you’re wrestling with it, you can send a private message through Facebook, and I will personally contact you this week.

We’re going to end the live feed now.

But if you’re here, with us in the service, with every head bowed, every eye closed, if that’s you. You’re thinking, “I don’t know if I’m saved. I don’t know if I’ve accepted Christ. I don’t know if I’ve ever established a relationship with the God of the Bible.” 

If that’s you, would you just slip up your hand, give me a wave, make eye contact… whatever because I want to pray with you and pray for you, and we will be in touch. But make today the day you make that choice to serve Him.

CLOSE IN PRAYER