The Creator & the Creation

The Lord, My God, My Salvation

WELCOME

Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; tell of all His wondrous works! Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice! (Psalm 105:1-3)

Welcome! (in-person/online)

In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Genesis 1:1. Turn there now.

While you’re turning, 3 quick announcements:

1) A word about PBC. We are servants.

Every member should regularly use their time, talent, and treasures to serve the body.

Body is the image Paul uses whenever he talks about serving.

Just like every body part doesn’t do the same thing, every member doesn’t need to do the same thing

But if a body part isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do, the rest of the body has to work harder to compensate

Here’s my challenge: if you’re not regularly using your time and talents to serve this body, go to the blue flag after the service, let us know that you WANT to serve and one of our elders will touch base with you to help you find out how you can serve

Pay attention to your screens for one way to serve this evening...

OCC Video

That’s announcement #2...

2) Tonight for TableTalk a hard-working team of volunteers is hosting an Operation Christmas Child Packing Party. Please join us tonight at 5:30.

3) We’re excited to have two of our Cru missionaries, Jeff and April Knapp with us today, along with their kids Claire and Andrew. Jeff and April have been serving with Cru for nearly 20 years. They’re currently serving in the Triad of North Carolina, working in various college campuses to find lost students and connect them to Jesus.

Please welcome the Knapps as April comes to read and pray for us.

Scripture Reading (Genesis 1:1)

Prayer of Praise (God is merciful, April Knapp)

The Power of the Cross

It Is Well

Prayer of Confession (Anger, Jeff Knapp)

It Is Not Death to Die

NEW CITY CATECHISM #30

Pastoral Prayer (John Rogers)

SERMON

In South Korea, a young man named Lee Jingyu [jing-you] recited his marriage vows before a local priest.

One of Jingyu’s friends said this about the groom: “He is completely obsessed . . . and takes it everywhere . . . They go out to the park or the funfair where it will go on all the rides with him. Then when he goes out to eat he takes it with him and it gets its own seat and its own meal.”

The “it” this friend was referring to was Jingyu’s bride: a large, huggable pillow. This “marriage,” celebrated as just another expression of modern love, was between a man and his pillow. [1]

In Toronto, Stefonknee released an emotional video, explaining a recent decision to identify … as a six-year-old. “A year ago I was eight and [my adopted sister] was seven. [My sister] said to me: ‘I want you to be the little sister, so I’ll be nine.’ I said: ‘Well, I don’t mind going to six.’ So I’ve been six ever since.”

For 52 years before recording that video Stefonknee was known as Paul. Before identifying as a six-year-old girl, Paul and his wife had been married for 23 years and together they had raised seven children. [2]

In Belgium, a committee of doctors unanimously approved a treatment aimed to end the suffering of three patients, children ages 9, 11, and 17. Those in favor of this treatment celebrate it as “serene,” “peaceful,” “beautiful,” “dignified,” and “humane.”

This treatment, which claims to humanely end the suffering of children, is euthanasia. Belgium is the only country that authorizes assisted suicide for children of any age. At least for now.[3]

In New York, a team of lawyers and activists defends a 47-year-old client who has spent her entire adult life behind bars in the Bronx. Her attorneys argue that she’s being detained illegally and her personhood is being violated. Initially dismissed by lower courts, it was recently announced that the state’s Court of Appeals would hear her case.

Yes, Happy the Elephant will have her day in court. And if attorneys from the Nonhuman Rights Project get their way, her personhood rights will be recognized and she’ll be released from the Bronx Zoo.[4]

Each of these stories has a common theme. Each is an example of a discarded distinction.

Those suing on behalf of elephant personhood have discarded the distinction between humanity and the rest of creation.

Those celebrating euthanasia have discarded the distinction between life and death.

Those identifying as another gender have discarded the distinction between male and female.

Those marrying pillows, horses, or even members of the same sex have discarded the distinction between marriage and every other relationship.

Over the next five weeks we're going to examine how crucial it is to understand these divine distinctions.

Our goal is to build our lives on the firm foundation of God's Word, a foundation that begins right at the beginning of Scripture.

Turn to Genesis 1

Over the past twelve weeks we’ve zoomed out and examined each of the Minor Prophets from a birds-eye view.

For the next five weeks we’re going to zoom in and focus on five divine distinctions from the first two chapters of Genesis.

Today—The Creator & the Creation (Genesis 1:1)

August 1—Humanity & All Other Creatures (Genesis 1:26-31)

August 8—Male & Female (Genesis 1:27)

August 15—Life & Death (Genesis 2:3-17)

August 22—Marriage & All Other Relationships (Genesis 2:19-25)

Every week we're going to examine one of these distinctions and attempt to answer two simple questions:

(1) What does this mean?

(2) Why does it matter?

And today we're beginning with the most important distinction of all, the distinction between the Creator and His creation...

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

What Does This Mean?

Four truths...

A. Time has a BEGINNING.

"In the beginning..."

I will not pretend to understand even a fraction of what physicists know about time. But on the authority of God’s Word, we can clearly say that time has a beginning.

Time is not infinite

Time is linear, not cyclical

B. GOD existed before time.

"In the beginning God..."

He didn't begin at the beginning, He was there before the beginning. He exists before and outside of time.

This idea is repeated throughout Scripture

Even the very name of God! “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14)

C. God is CREATOR.

"In the beginning God created..."

The rest of chapter 1 tells us the story of creation

Christians have debated for a long time the details about how God created. But we cannot debate that God is the Creator.

Revelation 4:11—“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they existed and were created.”

It’s no wonder, then, that the Apostles’ Creed begins, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

Genesis 1:1 means time has a beginning, God existed before time, and God is Creator. Let’s examine one more truth, which is the focus of our study this morning:

D) God is DISTINCT from all His creation

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth"

Since God doesn't even create the dry land until day three, I take this verse as a summary statement

The heavens are another way to describe the universe and everything in it

The earth is another way to describe this planet and everything in it

Meaning, "in the beginning God created everything that exists" and then the rest of chapter 1 tells us the details about what He created

It's saying you can put everything that exists into one of two circles: The Creator or the creation

Christian Pastor and author Peter Jones says there’s only two basic worldviews: One-ism and Two-ism.[5]

SHOW ONEISM/TWOISM IMAGE

You can visualize it with circles. In one-ism there’s one circle because at deep down everything is part of the same thing. In two-ism, there are two circles. One representing the Creator, and the other represents creation.

TWOISM—There are two kinds of existence. God exists eternally. Everything else has a beginning.

Transcendence—God is exalted, above, beyond us, other than us

This is what we see clearly taught in Genesis 1:1 and throughout the Bible

Psalm 57:5—Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

In fact, when the Bible calls God “holy” it is not first and foremost talking about His morality.

The Hebrew word קוֹדֶש [ka-dowsh] means “consecrated,” “set apart,” “different,” or “other”

Paul Washer—“Which is more like God, an angel in heaven or the bacteria on your toilet seat?” In one sense, the answer is neither. Both the angel in heaven and the bacteria are created things. And God is the transcendent Creator.

ONEISM—There is only one kind of existence. The world is either self-creating or infinite. Everything is made up of the same stuff (matter, spirit, or some combination).

In it’s secular forms, Oneism teaches that their is no spiritual realm. The universe began with a singularity, a big bang, and since then it’s been ever-expanding. Everything that exists is just a different form of matter.

This includes atheists and most agnostics

Atheist author Greta Christina wrote an article entitled “Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do With God” which say: “Your lifespan is an infinitesimally tiny fragment in the life of the universe, and . . . there is, at the very least, a strong possibility that when you die, you disappear completely and forever, and that in five hundred years nobody will remember you and in five billion years the Earth will be boiled into the sun.” [6]

In it’s spiritual forms, Oneism teaches that god is everything or that everything is in god.

This includes Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, gnosticism, Greek mythology, Native American religions, Wiccans, and more

Disney’s Pocahontas—The rainstorm and the river are my brothers / The heron and the otter are my friends / And we are all connected to each other / In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

Yoda to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back—"My ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.”

Yoda to Anakin in Revenge of the Sith—"Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice, for those around you who transform into the force.”

The Creator/Creature distinction sets Christianity apart from nearly every other worldview.

Romans 1:22-25—Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

You have a choice: believe that everything that exists is from the same stuff, or believe that there is a God outside of us who created us.

Let’s be clear: it isn’t enough to just believe that there is a Creator. Our Muslim and Jewish friends believe the same.

But in the end, if the god they worship is not the God revealed in the Bible, they too are worshiping the creature. They’re worshiping a god created out of the imagination of man, not the God of the Bible.

John 1:1-5, 9-13—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . . The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to his own, and His own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Father creates by speaking His Word. John tells us, the Father’s word is not mere vibration of vocal cords. The Word is a Person!

Jesus didn’t just create, He came into the world.

Most people didn’t receive Him, but you can! Not by working for it, not by wanting it hard enough, but through the work of God.

Unbeliever: Ask God to save you this morning!

Christian: Don’t be proud that you understand this! Praise God that He caused you to be born again!!!

Genesis 1:1 teaches us the most important distinction of all, the distinction between the Creator and His creation. But. . .

Why Does This Matter?

Two reasons the distinction between the Creator and the creation matters...

A) It Reminds Us WHO WE ARE

Nearly 500 years ago, a young French law graduate named John Calvin wrote his magnum opus, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. At nearly 1000 pages, Calvin’s systematic theology is a book which in many ways would become a summary of Reformation doctrine.

He began the book like this...

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. . . .

It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself. [7]

You’ll never truly know who you are unless you first understand who God is!

Top-button down principle: unless you get the top button right, you’re going to get the rest wrong.

It makes perfect sense that people who get the first distinction wrong are confused on the other distinctions!!!

No wonder people are looking within for enlightenment, self-worth, purpose and hope! We’ve lost the distinction between God and mankind because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

No wonder politicians can say it doesn’t matter if they get the facts wrong as long as they’re morally right! We’ve lost the distinction between truth and lies because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

No wonder so many people are encouraged to forget what other people say and “do what’s right for you”—even if that means doing something like taking the life of an unborn child. We’ve lost the distinction between good and evil because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

No wonder advocacy groups say things like “meat is murder” and “animals are people too.” We’ve lost the distinction between humans and animals because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

No wonder many people value planet life more than human life, like the “Birthstrikers” who refuse to have children until climate change is dealt with. We’ve lost the distinction between humanity and the earth because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

No wonder our culture is increasingly confused about sexuality. No wonder in Britain in 2018 there was a 4,400% rise over the previous decade in teenage girls seeking gender treatments. No wonder the numbers of gender-reassignment surgeries for girls in the US recently quadrupled in one year. [8] We’ve lost the distinction between men and women because we’ve lost the distinction between the Creator and the creation.

If you’re struggling with any of these distinctions, you will begin to find a firm foundation as you dive deeper into the knowledge of who you are as you dive deeper into the truth about who God is!

Watching Barbie movie with the girls...

Say hello to all the sides of who you are // Never know what you might find // Try it on // You can be who you wanna be // All the possibilities // Come on and try it on // Take a chance, see what you got // Don't let yourself get put inside a box // Just try it on

Ella—“we like this song, but we don’t like these words. You can’t be whatever you wanna be. You can’t be a Mermaid!”

Freedom isn’t found in limitless possibilities. Freedom is found in knowing your limits about who you are!

If you’re not struggling don’t look down on the struggler! Love them! Point them to the truth!

B) It Reminds Us WHY WE’RE HERE

Why are you here?

There’s lots of answers people give to that question. Consider one given by an agnostic playwright named Samuel Beckett. His answer to the question, “why am I here?” was given in a 35 second play called “Breath.” You can watch it on YouTube. It begins with an infant’s cry. The curtain then opens on a pile of miscellaneous trash scattered on the stage. You hear a long, slow inhale. And then the curtain closes to the sound of a slow exhale, representing life’s final breath.

His point is obvious. Life is a vapor, bracketed between our first inhale and our final exhale. In between, it’s nothing but a pile of trash.

Now Beckett is right in one sense. Even Solomon called life just a vapor, a breath. But is it meaningless? Is it nothing more than a pile of random trash?

In the worldview of one-ism, that’s all life can be.

If you’re a secular one-ist, you’re just a collection of atoms that comes together for a brief period of time before you fall apart and return to nothingness.

If you’re a spiritual one-ist, when you die you merge with the universal spirit. But there’s still no you left. You’re just a drop in an ocean of oneness.

But in two-ism, life has meaning and purpose!

Isaiah 43:6-7—Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by My name, whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made.”

You were created to magnify God!

John Piper helps us here when he talks about two ways to magnify something. Like a microscope or like a telescope.[9]

EXPLAIN

That was Adam and Eve’s purpose. They were tempted by a serpent and they failed. Now all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

In the worldview of one-ism, salvation must be an inside job. We’ve got to fix things ourselves! But if there is a Creator who exists outside of creation, He can step into creation and save us!

That’s exactly what happened!

God promised there would come a Son of Adam who would perfectly glorify the Father and crush the serpent’s head.

That Snake-Crusher would also die on a cross, paying the penalty for those who repent and believe

Now we can live our lives magnifying His name, not to earn God’s love but because we have it!

Genesis 1:1 teaches us that the Creator is distinct from His creation. And if we fail to recognize this distinction, we’ll forget who we are and we’ll forget why we’re here.

That’s exactly what happened to Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum when they were talking to the Queen of Underland in The Silver Chair, one of the books in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series.

Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum were looking to rescue Prince Rillian from the queen’s underground enchantments, but when they met her they found themselves succumbing to her enchantments themselves.

She tried to convince them that the underground world was all there was. There was no overworld. There was no Narnia.

But Puddleglum insisted that there was. After all, he had seen the sun.

The witch asked them, “What is this sun that you all speak of?”

They looked at a lamp and tried to explain to her that the sun was like a lamp, except it hung in the sky and it was much bigger and much brighter.

The witch laughed and asked, “When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children’s story.”[10]

Brother, sister, friend, that’s exactly how our Enemy tries to enchant us. This world is all there is. Belief in God is a tale, a children’s story. The things we love about God are just copies, projections of the real things that we can see, smell, hear, and feel.

But the reverse is the truth. God has always existed. And everything good that we see is just a reflection of His glory.

So don’t stop believing. Even when the tempter tries to enchant you. Look to the One who holds us fast.

He Will Hold Me Fast

Benediction (1 Timothy 1:17)