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"In the Beginning God Created"
We’ve been talking about it for weeks and today the
adventure begins. If you’re here for the first time
I’m talking about a year-long preaching series for 2008
in which we will cover the whole story of the Bible from
Creation to the End of the World and the glorious return
of our Lord Jesus Christ to rule perfectly over us and
His Kingdom for all eternity.
The title of the series is Thy Kingdom Come. The idea
behind it is that the Bible is a closed book for many
people. Even for those who grew up all their lives in
the church, going to Sunday school, it seems that the
story the Bible tells is not very well understood. I
think that’s because it comes to us so often in bits
and pieces, the Christmas Story, Daniel in the Lion’s
Den, David and Goliath, Jesus Feeds the 5000, and so
on, but without a firm understanding of the big picture
of the whole story the bits and pieces become interesting
little morality lessons often used to simply try and teach
us how to behave.
I want to raise you up above that this year and deliver the
broad sweeping story line of the Bible. For it is a unified
story from beginning to end that claims to be the underlying
driving force for all of human history. In other words the
Bible presents itself as the interpretive lens through which
we come to see and understand what is happening in the world
around us and in our own lives. That’s exciting stuff, because
if it is true, and I have come to believe it is, it gives
meaning, purpose, and ultimately a perfect resolution to
all that we experience.
I invite you then to listen, to ask questions, to use the
Kingdom Page to expand on what you hear in the sermons, to
check out the 9:30 Digging Deeper Bible Study, to talk to
one another and wrestle with the ideas. Let’s see where
God takes us.
I’m going to guess as we get started today that many, if not
all of you here have at one time or another set out to try
and read the Bible through from beginning to end. You started
at Genesis 1:1 and first three chapters were readable and
interesting. Chapter 4 has the first recorded homicide,
with no need for CSI to interpret the crime scene. God
is the detective on duty and the judge and the jury. But
then comes chapter 5 which is a genealogy, a whole list
of strange sounding names, so-and-so begat so-and-so,
who begat so-an-so. But you waded through it and got
to chapters 6-9. The story of the flood was pretty intense,
but then guess what happens in chapter 10, another genealogy.
If you made it past that the rest of Genesis is an intriguing
saga that would rival any soap opera you ever watched on TV.
Then the first 25 chapters or so of Exodus are action packed
but the next 25 chapters are a description of a tent called
the tabernacle with specific details about how long the poles
and cords should be. Few people make it past that to Numbers
with its counting of the people by tribes and even fewer through
Leviticus which reads like an ancient law book with rules and
regulations that seem absolutely foreign to us. And so ends
many a well intentioned attempt to read the whole Bible.
What I hope to give you starting today is a series of
hooks that you can hang your hat on as we travel through
time together. The details will fill in as you continue
to rehearse the main story line again and again.
The first hook is the opening sentence of story. “In the
beginning God created.” There are three parts to this
sermon and then a conclusion. Part one: In the beginning;
part two: in the beginning God; and part three in the
beginning God created. On this statement the entire story
of the Bible rests. If it is not true then nothing else
that follows matters. This opening proclamation therefore
sets the stage for the entire drama of human history to
unfold.
For that reason they are the most controversial words in the
whole Bible. We may take it for granted but the claim that
there was actually a beginning is not universally accepted.
Fredrick Nietzsche, a philosopher perhaps most famous for
his statement, “God is dead” announcing his view that human
beings were finally advancing beyond the need for religion,
resurrected an ancient Greek idea called the myth of eternal
recurrence, which simply means that the universe does not
have a beginning but goes round and round forever.
Now I doubt that any of us have ever thought that or claimed
that idea as our understanding of the way the world works,
but I can certainly see in my own life, our society, our
culture an attitude or mindset that for all practical
purposes behaves as if life is simply a never ending
merry-go-round from which we have all wished we could
stop and get off.
The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible deals with the result
of this kind of thinking and living. If life is an endless
loop in which we are all trapped the writer of Ecclesiastes
declares, “Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless.”
But the radical claim of the opening sentence of the Bible is
that there is a beginning. And that assertion requires –
listen carefully to this – that assertion requires that there
be something preceding the beginning. In other words, for there
to be a beginning there must be something that stands above and
beyond the beginning; something that in and of itself is external
and self-existent; something that has the very power of existence
in and of itself.
So you see what’s coming and surely you’re thinking yes, of course
we know all this. The Bible declares, “in the beginning God” and
proclaims His existence above and apart from everything that we
have and know. But who doesn’t believe in the existence of God?
Another survey came through my e-mail this week declaring boldly
that ninety-some percent of Americans say they believe in God.
It is not really a very helpful or definitive statement to say
you believe in God. The Bible even goes so far as to say that
even devil and his demons believe God exists and tremble at the
thought of him (James 2:19). The real issues that reaches beyond
believing there is a God is what do you believe God does?
And that opens the door to part three of this sermon. In the
beginning God created. In the beginning God does something.
God takes action – the most magnificent and fantastic work
ever done - the creation of the universe. We use the word
“create” in all kinds of ways to talk about the work of
artists and musicians and architects and even chefs. We
marvel at the inherent creativity of human beings, but it’s
not the same thing. Human beings can take what already is
and mix and arrange it to make something new or different.
What the Bible claims is more radical than that. In the act
of creation there were no ingredients for God to start with.
Listen to how the Bible describes what there was before God
created. Vs. 2 uses three words – formless, empty, and
darkness. To be formless is to be without any order. It is
pure chaos which is a condition that frankly we really have
no frame of reference to comprehend. Empty is perhaps easier
to grasp because we can relate it to some internal feelings
we have about life from time to time. And darkness is at least
imaginable from our experiences but absolute darkness with no
possible relief would quickly drive us mad.
A lot of people say they believe in God. Our text demands a
bit more than that. In the beginning God created! From inside
Himself issues forth the source and the very power of existence
itself. God speaks, “Let there be light,” and from Him light
itself begins to fill the formless, empty, darkness. This is
the remarkable claim that begins the story of God and it makes
all the difference in the world (no pun intended) for how we
will live.
To believe that “in the beginning God created” is to discover
that life has meaning, purpose and direction. Throughout the
first chapter of Genesis God speaks, “Let there be,” and each
act of creation concludes, “and God saw what he had made and
it was good.” His activity was for a purpose. And we will
discover and explore next week that the culmination and
ultimate goal of creating is us! God saw all that he had
made, including us, and it was very good.
What you see and experience now, however, is not what God
intended and in two weeks we’ll see why he allowed it to fall
into the ugly mess we have now. But mark my words carefully,
because the Bible claims, that before He ever spoke the words,
“Let there be,” he already had in mind the means by which he
would secure and restore permanently the original goodness of
His creation. (1 Peter 1:20; Ephesians 1:4)
You heard me right. The story of the Bible is that God had
Jesus in mind as the Savior of creation before He ever spoke
His creating words. Now that my friends is a remarkable idea,
because it means what I told you at the beginning, that all
the events of this world’s history are woven into a brilliant
plan to give you the “good” life God created you to have. Over
the centuries and the millenniums that have passed He has been
at work for this moment as it relates to you personally.
To achieve life, eternal life, the full, good, and perfect
life for you God allowed His creation to become broken through
sin so that He could enter into His creation Himself as a man
to restore it in such a way that it can never be broken again.
That’s what Jesus did at he cross when he said, “It is finished.”
That’s what Jesus did when He rose from the dead and said,
“Peace be with you.”
In the beginning, in the beginning God, in the beginning God
created. What we have now is not all there is. We live by faith
that what is yet to come is worth enduring whatever comes our
way here and now. We live by faith proclaiming for all to see
and hear that there is more to life than meets the eye.
Now, if all these things are true, then what we do with our
lives here and now makes a difference. It means that we can
enjoy all the good things there are in this world, they were
created by God for us! And folks there are many good things.
But we enjoy them knowing that they are only a very, very,
dim shadow of what is yet to come. We enjoy our food, our
houses, our new Wii video game we got for Christmas, whatever
blessings God pours out on us but we do not become possessed
by them and we show that clearly to others by not over-indulging,
not whining and complaining about what we don’t have, and
especially by sharing what we do have with this sin-sick and
dying world that all may know God and grow in faith toward Him
and in love for one another.
If the story of the Bible is true, then what we do with our lives
here and now makes an eternal difference, not only in how we share
and enjoy the good things, but also in how we respond and deal with
the bad things. When we get sick or hurt or tragedy strikes or we
lose our money, home, possessions, we cry, we feel angry and bitter,
we react like the human beings that we are but by faith we endure,
we turn to God, we demonstrate to those around us a peace that
passes all human understanding and a drive and determination that
leaves them scratching their heads.
In the beginning, in the beginning God, in the beginning God created
and that makes all the difference in the world.
Amen.
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