In the Beginning, God

Good morning, welcome, please open your Bibles to Genesis 1.

Plan moving forward- begin working through at least the beginning of Genesis.

Beginning of so many things, in fact, the beginning of everything but God.

Our purpose in joining together to worship.

In everything, we are meant to glorify, or make much of, God.

Thomas Watson in A Body of Divinity- “To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts; to esteem Him most excellent, and search for diamonds in this rock alone!”

Is this our worship this morning? God-admiring thoughts.

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

Pray.

Focus our attention on what we see of God and then what are a few applications for our lives?

1. The Eternity of God.

Communicable vs. incommunicable attributes of God.

God is eternal. He is without beginning and end.

Psalm 90:2- Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Psalm 102:25-27- Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.

We must understand the eternity of God in a clearer way.

Not just no beginning and no end, but God truly transcends time, He is not bound by time. He is outside of it altogether.

Louis Berkhof- “Our existence is marked off by days and weeks and months and years; not so the existence of God. Our life is divided into a past, present and future, but there is no such division in the life of God. His eternity may be defined as that perfection of God whereby He is elevated above all temporal limits and all succession of moments and possesses the whole of His existence in one indivisible present.”

Consider the omnipresence of God- God is not bound by space in the way in which we are. He is present everywhere in His fullness.

The same is true of the eternity of God- While not bound by space, He is also not bound by time, and is present completely and simultaneously in past, present and future.

When we read the opening of Genesis, we are meant to see the vast gulf between God and man.

J.I. Packer- “He exists in a different way from us: we, his creatures, exist in a dependent, derived, finite, fragile way, but our Maker exists in an eternal, self-sustaining, necessary way- necessary, that is, in the sense that God does not have it in him to go out of existence, just as we do not have it in us to live forever.”

We can derive more concerning the nature of God if we believe in His eternity. In fact, if we simply add to the mix the immutability of God, or His changelessness, consider what we can gain in our understanding of Him.

Psalm 102:26-27- They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end.

Speaks to the faithfulness of God.

So what more can we learn- Not only is the existence of God eternal, but so are the plans of God and the commands of God.

The plans of God are eternal.

Numbers 23:19- God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Great is Thy Faithfulness by Thomas Chisholm- Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with thee. Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not; as thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

God’s plans are eternal, His mind does not change, He is all powerful to accomplish what He has set in motion.

The commands of God are eternal.

If God is eternal and unchanging, and if His plans never change, then how He accomplishes those plans through humanity will never change.

Who God desires people to be will remain constant. We are to be like God in character. If that character never changes, then neither will change what God demands of us.

2. The Preeminence of God.

Preeminence- High status or importance owing to superiority.

Colossians 1:18- And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Because God is eternal, because He is so different from man, He is to be preeminent, or superior, to everything else in all of life.

Preeminent in the world.

This world is about God and His purposes.

Proverbs 21:1- The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.

We are meant to measure human history in relation to what has been accomplished for God’s purposes.

This changes how we consider political issues. What will most advance God’s causes and purposes in the world?

Preeminent in Scripture.

What is the Bible at it’s core?

The Bible is about God, because the Bible is God’s Word, His revealing of Himself to us. We should read it as such.

Marva Dawn- “We can too naturally tend toward asking what the text says and means for our benefit instead of what it says about God, and how its purpose ultimately is to draw us into worship.”

Preeminent in life.

Romans 12:1- I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Your life is meant to show God’s preeminence.

How you live should be a witness to the greatness and majesty of God.

For many, this is simply not the case.

What would others say of you? What would your spouse say? Your best friend? Your parents? Your child?

Preeminent in speech.

We are to speak with God in mind.

Psalm 19:14- Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

How often do we say a prayer like this?

Preeminent in worship.

Focusing our attention from the broader scope of all of life as worship to the narrower scope of our gathered worship.

We tend to look outside of God for the worshipful experience.

Colossians 3:16-17- Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Preeminent in evangelism.

How do we share the gospel? Do we share it in a way that is God-centric or man-centric?

Romans 10:13-15- For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Preeminent in eternity.

If all of life is about the preeminence and superiority of God, and all of world history is meant to be about God’s purposes, then eternity itself will revolve around the worship of God.

Revelation 5:11-12- Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Hopefully we are seeing here, because God is eternal, God is meant to be preeminent in every facet of life.

Let’s end with one more question- aren’t we eternal?

3. Eternity in our hearts.

Stephen Charnock- “Angels, souls, and bodies too, after the resurrection, shall be immortal; not by nature but grant; they are subject to return to nothing, if that word that raised them from nothing should speak them into nothing again.”

What is Charnock saying? Eternity must be granted to man. It is not native to mankind but is quite foreign. But not so for God.

Not only is it granted to us, but God has also put it in our minds, in our hearts. We seek after eternity.

Ecclesiastes 3:11- He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Each human being has a sense of eternity within himself. Why people tend to believe themselves to live forever.

Why we need to be reminded of the brevity of our lives.

John 5- The Father has life in Himself as does the Son. We do not have life, or eternity, in ourselves, but God has given it to us.

Two truths to always remember:

God is eternal and is thus worthy of preeminence in all of life.

We are not eternal and are thus in need of God’s gift of eternal life and all which accompanies it.

Are you living with eternity in mind?