In the Beginning....God!
In the Beginning…God!
Genesis 1:1
There are many Bible passages that people know and love. But of all the Bible’s best-known passages, the most familiar verse may well be the very first. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And what fitting words they are…for this is where it all begins.
And that’s were we start today…at the beginning…in a brand new series from the first eleven chapters of Genesis which I’m calling A First Time for Everything. For Genesis is a book of firsts…a book of origins…of beginnings…of generations. It’s has to do with our legacy as people.
Every person alive today has to grapple with the four fundamental questions of life: “Where did I come from?”; “Why am I here?”; “Where am I going?”; and “Who is God?” The book of Genesis helps us to understand the answers to all four questions.
If you remember the mini-series Roots that premiered in 1977, you know how important the subject of identity is. A full 66% of American television viewers watched that series. It changed the way that much of America views the African-American community, and it gave many black Americans a deeper insight into where they’d come from.
That’s the way the book of Genesis functions. It teaches us about our spiritual legacy…about our beginnings…our spiritual roots. In Genesis we see the origin of matter… humanity…marriage and family…evil and sin. We see the first government, the first languages, the first social structures. In Genesis we the establishment of the first people of God…and the meaning of salvation and restoration.
It’s often been said that the root of faith is the Bible…that the root of the Bible is the book of Genesis…and that the root of Genesis is Genesis 1:1…“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is where it all begins. The great theologian/philosopher Francis Schaffer said one time that if he had only one hour to share the gospel with someone, he’d spend 55 minutes telling them about the creation, the Creator, the fall, and the need for salvation. All of that is in Genesis. This is where it all begins.
And that’s exactly where we want to start in this study…at the beginning. Today we look at the first of a two-part message on creation, “In the Beginning…God!” And over these next two Sundays I want us to look at three important dimensions of creation: first, the designer of creation; second, the days of creation; and third, the denial of creation. Let’s first look at…
1. The Designer of Creation.
The one thing that’s obvious when you read the creation account of Genesis 1 is that it’s totally God-centered. The opening words of the Bible bring us immediately into the presence of God. What’s important is not so much the creation, but the one who’s doing the creating. In 31 verses the name of God is mentioned 32 times.
Which is one of the reasons why the book of Genesis has been, and continues to be, under such attack. It presents God as both the heart and source of all the universe…and Satan hates that. The book of Genesis and the doctrine of divine creation are both under incredible attack, and it’s no wonder why….you destroy Genesis and you, in effect, destroy Christianity.
If you abandon the creation account to mere mythology…as something unacceptable to modern science, then Satan has won the battle. Think about it…if the Bible can’t be trusted when it tells of creation, how can it be trusted when it tells of salvation? If God isn’t powerful enough to create the heavens and the earth, how can he be powerful enough to send his son to be born of a virgin…or to raise him from the dead? If we can’t trust Genesis 1:1, how can we trust John 3:16?
This is why the great battle in the world today is really a battle of worldviews…of philosophies about how the world began. The question really is, did God make man, or did man make God? On the one side you have Biblical Christianity, which presents a creation based on intelligent design…that God, the great uncaused Cause, spoke and from no preexistent material whatsoever created the heavens and the earth.
The other worldview is called naturalism…the philosophy that things just happen by chance…by random/accidental occurrences of natural law. It’s really a philosophy that proposes that nothing x nobody = everything. It’s nothing but a theory, without any concrete proof whatsoever, but it’s being taught and proposed as absolute fact to a whole generation. This worldview has no place for, and no need of, God. It’s atheistic to the core.
The atheist believes that the cosmos was produced by random chance from preexisting chaos. In his mind the only thing that’s eternal is matter…and from preexisting matter, a great explosion ensued billions of years ago from which everything emerged and then evolved. But to look at the precision, and the order, and the magnificence of the universe and say that is like saying that an F5 tornado blasted through a huge junkyard, reorganized the junk, and after millions of year a perfect 747 was produced.
Or that a cartload of paint came into contract with a stick of dynamite inside the Sistine Chapel, and from that explosion this beautiful painting was left behind on the ceiling. It’s obvious nonsense. The great astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle compares the likelihood of life beginning by chance to taking 10 to the 50th power blind men, giving them a scrambled Rubik’s cube, and having all of them solve it at the exactly the same moment! Really it’s a religious proposition that requires a whole lot more faith than the simple, and to most the obvious, introduction to the Word of God, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
And the rejection of that proposition helps to explain why the world is in the mess it’s in. Listen, if you reduce the existence of the universe and of human beings to nothing more than an accidental force of nature…if man is nothing more than, and no different from, an animal, pretty soon, he’s going to start acting like an animal. We make up the rules as we go along…no absolute truth…no objective standards of right and wrong…you and I just determine that for ourselves. This kind of thinking is the by-product of naturalism…that life arose by chance.
We live in a culture where drug use has spiraled out of total control…the family’s on the verge of extinction…suicide rates are at an all time high…the abortion is still a major epidemic here and around the world…racism refuses to go away. Why? Because reverence for life begins with the belief that life has value because God created life…we’re not just a great cosmic accident.
Every watch has a watchmaker…every building has a builder…every builder has a plan…and every plan has a purpose. That, my friends, is what’s logical! It’s logical and rational to believe that an Intelligent Designer is behind the sophistication and majesty of this very precise and complicated universe.
What’s illogical is atheism. Have you ever noticed that the Bible has very little to say about the atheist…almost nothing. The only thing is says about the atheist is this: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God” (Psalm 14:1). Listen, people reject God not because of the evidence, but in the face of the evidence. The bottom line is, they don’t want God…and the Bible testifies to that…men loved darkness rather than light. And I’m convinced that many still hold to this atheistic, naturalistic worldview, not because the evidence supports it, but because they refuse to begin with a worldview that starts with a Creator God. God simply doesn’t fit into their system.
But from the beginning the Bible shouts it out loud: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What does this verse tell us about the great Designer of the universe? Well the first thing it shows us about God is his eternal nature…In the beginning God created…in the beginning that had no beginning, God began his work of creation.
That’s a staggering statement. The only thing that’s eternal is God…not matter, not atoms, not ions…only God is eternal…without beginning and without end. Nothing in the world pre-dates God. Psalm 90:2 says, “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” He’s described in revelation as “the Lord Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (Rev 4:8).
Think about it…everything has to have an origin…a beginning. Everything, that is, but God. Nothing pre-dates God…he is totally distinct from creation…which is why it’s wrong to worship the creation. God created matter…he’s separate from it and superior to it. God created everything, but not everything is God. The Bible, and the very creation itself, begins with God…he is eternal.
And as eternal God, he’s totally self-sufficient…he doesn’t need any outside source to survive…doesn’t need oxygen…food…water…gravity…light…heat. God pre-dates all of that, and therefore needs nothing. All of these things and every natural law operating in the universe today could cease, desist, and disappear, and we’d all be dead…but not God. From everlasting to everlasting, he is God.
But these opening words also demonstrate his power. In the beginning God created. The word create is the Hebrew bara which means to produce something from nothing. It’s interesting…every time that word is used in the Bible, God is always the subject…only God. Man can make things, but only God creates. Man is dependent on pre-existent material…we craft. But only God can fashion something out of nothing.
And that’s exactly what God does in creation. He simply speaks a word, and things come into being. Look at Hebrews 11:3: “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Nine times in the first chapter of Genesis you have these simple words: And God said. God speaks, and whatever he wills is done. This is the incredible power of God.
And you see it demonstrated throughout the ministry of Jesus Christ. When Jesus encountered a raging storm, he encounters the wind and waves with nothing but his voice…Peace, be still. When he stood before the tomb of Lazarus, whose body had been dead four days and had already begun to decompose, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And the dead man came out. This is God…he speaks and amazing things happen.
But this simple introduction to God’s Word also demonstrates the creativity of God. Throughout the rest of chapter one we see the diversity and variety of God’s creation. Look up into the heavens on a clear night and you might see some 10,000 different points of light…most of those are from our own Milky Way galaxy…scientists estimate that our galaxy alone contains somewhere around 200 billion stars. And ours is only one of countless galaxies swirling around the universe at huge velocities and with such great mathematical precision that we can tell the occasion of an eclipse or the visit of a comet years in advance. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).
The same God who orchestrated all of that is the same God who gave us countless forms plant and animal life…more than 800,000 different forms of insects…30,000 kinds of fish…9,000 kinds of birds…6,000 kinds of reptiles…and over 5,000 kinds of mammals. Not only is God eternal…not only is God powerful…God is also wonderfully creative. And all of that is revealed in this simple, yet profound statement…In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We’re living in critical times today…there’s a great battle raging for the minds and hearts of people. And, personally, I don’t believe that it’s a battle between science and religion. I don’t think Christianity has anything whatsoever to fear from true science. But a lot of what’s being taught today isn’t true science. It’s naturalistic philosophy masquerading as true science…it’s really just another religion in which the cosmos is god…the God of the Bible is systematically shut out.
But that’s impossible…because deeper you dig in this quest to answer life’s most basic questions, the closer you get to God. Francis Bacon was right: “A little science estranges a man from God. A lot of science brings him back.”
And the first words of the Bible bring us back to God…they bring us face to face with creation’s great Designer. He’s a God who’s bigger than the biggest galaxy. And yet he’s a God who’s small enough to live within your heart. Why did God create the heavens and the earth? Well…because he chose to…and he chose to make you. And as we’re going to see, nothing in the wide universe is more important to God than you. David really wrestled with that. He said in Psalm 8:3-4, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?”
And yet man is anything but insignificant…God’s got the whole world in his hands, but he’s got you in his heart. He knows you by name...and his greatest desire for your life, is that you know come to know him for who he really is…Creator of the universe…and Savior of the world.