In The Beginning

0:00Good morning again. There it is. There it is. As you know, this is an exciting week. We're beginning a new series on a new book of the Bible. It's not a new book, right? This book has been around for a while, but it's new for us. We're going back to the beginning. All the way back to the beginning, where our story, the story of humanity and the redemption of man, began. It's our story because we have been graciously written into it, but we know that it's really God's story. Not only because he has written the whole thing as he has, and not only because God is also the main character in this story, as I pray the Lord will show us. It's really all about him. And the common thread that I hope to expose is the reality that Christ our Lord is present in every scene. He's not just hiding in the background like some poorly paid extra, but he is directing the whole thing. The whole thing. From beginning to end with an ordained and sovereign purpose. The grand story that begins in the beginning was not written as things went along. There was no whiteout, no backspace, no eraser used here. This story, his story, and providentially our story, really all of history, was outlined and written in the mind of God before the ages began. Before time began. The word. Maybe I'll emphasize that better. The word. Who spoke the words? Who wrote the words? Who became the word. Our living word was. I use the past tense of the form of that word, was, because for our minds, that's all we can really understand, right? For us, time needs to be linear in order to make sense. But in reality, we know the one who was by another name. I am. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the timeless one in whom there is no change. The transcendent one who dwells far beyond our capacity of understanding. The self-existent one who has no needs. The unknowable God far beyond and behind and above all things. But we do know him. And we can know him. Because by his grace he spoke to us. The word created that we may know him. The word spoke that we may understand and obey him. The word prophesied that we may recognize him. The word became flesh that he should rescue us. The words were completed and written down that we may remember and believe in him. And all of that had a beginning. And that's where we start. So turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Genesis, which happens to mean the beginning. I'll try to get there. I mentioned several weeks ago when we talked about going through Genesis that we're going to take this book in large sections over the course of 20 to 24 weeks, probably 24 weeks. As a result, we're not going to be able to read the entire sections every single week that we preach. But your homework then each week is to read the rest of the passages that we cover. But we will try to cover as much of the text as possible. But given that this initial account of creation, we had to read the whole thing, which is what we did to start the service. So please stand with me as we start again in chapter 28. Sorry, verse 28 of chapter 1, and I'm going to read through verse 3 of chapter 2. And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living creature that moves on earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the faith of face of all the earth, and over uh sorry, and every tree with f with uh seed and its fruit, you shall have them for food, and to every beast on the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good, and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and on the seventh day God finished his work, all that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day, made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray once more. Thank you, Lord, again, for your word, for blessing us with your word, Lord, for revealing yourself to us in and through your word, Lord, and we pray and ask now that you would speak for Christ's sake and is in his name that I pray. Amen. So beginning this morning, uh I want to make my intentions clear as we move throughout this book. Uh there are a number of questions that we're going to run up against during our time through the book of Genesis, and I don't intend to address all of them, or really even most of them, right out of the gate this morning, uh in the texts that we read before at the beginning, uh, we can ask, how long is a day? Is a day really a day? And if so, is the earth only 6,000-ish years old? If the sun wasn't created until the fourth day, as we read, how did the plants survive which he created on day three? Unless, of course, a day really is just a day. And there are many more weak questions that we could uh answer and questions that we could discuss, but I think that these questions are best discussed and talked about over uh maybe some wine and charcuterie. Or maybe iced tea and a cigar. I don't know if you'd like if you like wine and cheese. But if you don't like cheese and proscutio, I will pray for you. I will, I will. Because I do like that. But these are actually the kind of questions, all of those questions that I mentioned. Those are the kind of questions that we should be discussing, right? Uh, over dinner with friends, as opposed to questions like uh who will get the rose and when Nick Cage is going to make another movie. Hashtag national treasure, because I hope he he does something. I'm done with jokes. Maybe there's one more, I don't know. Uh but those are the kind of things we should be talking about amongst friends. Um I'm not ducking those those questions, right? I'm happy to discuss them at any time. Um I don't find them unworthy of addressing. On the contrary, I do think they make for fruitful conversations and friendly debates, and we should have them, but we should save them for that uh fellowship arena. Uh what we will do here in the morning is look for Christ. Uh, what he asks us to do and who he is, certainly. And I hope by the end of our time in Genesis, you are completely worn out with me showing you how Christ is in everything and above and behind everything. That would be a success for me if you are tired of me talking about that, which you won't be. If we really believe that all things are by him and through him and for his glory, then surely the book of Genesis is included in that, right? So, a little bit of history first. I don't think it will surprise anyone, uh, don't think anyone will be surprised with the by the fact that this book was not written, specifically the text that we read this morning. It was not written at creation. Okay? The book of Genesis, and specifically this text, was not written at creation, right? Shocker. But if you stop to think uh when it was written, the state of the world when it was written, and of course who it was written to. It is believed that Genesis was written around the mid-1400s, 1440-ish BC. Uh so even if the age of the earth follows the youngest possible estimations, uh, Moses would have written this potentially 3,000 years into human history. So for at least 3,000 years, likely more, possibly more, the the people of the world existed without a definite and definitive story written for them on how it all began. And we know people had questions about it, right? The worship of false gods and paganism didn't begin after our origins were written down. Remember the flood out of Noah, why did that happen? And this is what vastly differentiates humans from the rest of creation. We have the capacity and the yearning for answers about where we came from. An ape is not sitting around a campfire looking up at the stars, wondering how they got there or who made them or why they are even here. These existential thoughts are only had by humans, and such thoughts about the origins of us aren't new. Such thoughts didn't evolve in us. As humans created by God and given a soul and a conscience, we know that there is something greater than us. Something that is beyond us. We feel it, right? We know it. That's Romans 1 as well. So this book was not written at the beginning, right? But rather given by grace in the midst of a people with questions and with longings. Do you know that all cultures dating back to Moses and certainly before, we would assume, and documented history, they all have a creation story. All cultures follow some form of religion. Many describe salvation coming by a godman, or a God who sacrificed himself, or the resurrection of a deity. Most include some narrative about a great flood, right? A battle between good and evil with hell and paradise. How can that be? Because it's true. It's all true. And mankind, on the whole, spent thousands of years feeling their way in the dark for answers and getting these little glimpses of truth. And yes, God did speak to and reveal himself to people prior to Moses. We know that. We're going to read about that through Genesis. But what I need you to see is that Genesis is a marvelous grace of our God. It is a grace of our God. The God. Not the gods that so many found in their reaching for the dark. Not the beginning of one of the myths that hit close to the truth, but not quite.

12:50Right?

12:51God set the record straight here. He gave us the true myth. He revealed the story so that we could know the truth. This is the beginning of the light and the darkness. It's the revelation that answers the deepest questions of the human heart. How did I get here? Who made me? Why is there evil? Why do I struggle? Who will save me from this mess that I am in? By the grace of God, he answers all those questions for us. He just took 66 books over 1,500 years or so to fully answer it. But he does, and he did. And we know from the Gospel of John that when we read here in Genesis, in the beginning, God, this is not some impersonal force. It's not some impersonal force in the universe creating because he was bored, wanted something to do. This in the beginning, God, this is the word. This is the personal God. This is Christ. This is our Savior and our Lord speaking into existence the things in which he will later redeem. When those first words of creation were spoken, the triune God knew that the fullness of time ended on a cross. He created knowing that his creation would one day kill him. The tree that he made and he watered and he grew would be his torture. That you, his beloved image, would be marred by sin and reject him. That you would turn from him. Why? Why would he even do this then? And the only answer I can give beyond simply that he willed to do it was that he knew you and he loved you. I'm so far from being lovable by a holy and perfect God, right? I won't speak for y'all, but I'll say you're probably also far from being lovable by a holy and perfect God. Yet doesn't that make it all the more gracious? Also, time isn't linear for God, right? This is what we have established. He may see you now and saw you then, as he, not as he presently sees you, but as you will be transformed by his grace. You don't have to turn there, but Revelation 21 was written in the mind of God long before these words were ever put on parchment. And it says in chapter verse 1 of 21, Revelation chapter 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the whole holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor any pain any more. For the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And also he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. That end is what began when the word created. So we do have to get to the rest of the passage. I think we've only gone through five words so far, but we'll get there. The second thing I want you to pull from this uh creation narrative is that our God orders the chaos. Our God orders the chaos. Have you ever seen those painters? Uh I I've seen them a couple times on TV and on YouTube. Usually it's some kind of a performance, and they scatter paint all over a canvas and it looks like nothing, right? It just looks like literally nothing until right at the end and they like scatter baby powder or something on it and they turn it upside down and it's like a picture of Johnny Cash or something. Have you seen these? Like now, okay, we've seen that. If you've seen that, you know, you can laugh. Now imagine that same painting, but the painter just walks out on the stage and and sets the painting down, and that's it. Like it's still a great painting, I suppose, but when you see how it was made, uh the awe is far greater, right? There is great drama in it. There's a suspense in this process, especially when the end result kind of takes you by surprise. You're like, I wasn't expecting that. How often our God takes us by surprise, doesn't he? Could God have just spoken once and everything immediately existed? Of course he could have. It's not as though his power has limits and he can only create so much in a certain amount of time. Rather, he is establishing the rhythm of his creation. He's condescending to his creation by himself following the very patterns in which he is creating into creation. This obviously points to the ultimate condescension of God when he became his creation. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. So God follows the patterns of his creation. He follows the drama of his creation. He throws paint on a canvas, and then over the course of six days, he begins to add and shape his tapestry. He takes that which is formless and void, and he begins to reveal his masterpiece. He puts all the lights in the sky, we said. That is all the other stars and all the other planets and all the other galaxies. He creates an atmosphere around the earth that not only makes it habitable for the rest of creation, but it also forms the weather. He makes the weather. All of the properties and principles that make rain and weather possible. He created. He gathers the water on the earth and together in specific places so that there's dry land and there's oceans. The seeds, that is the process by which vegetation can increase and multiply. He placed that into creation. You know how amazing and complex plant life and soil is and plant reproduction? God made all of that. He made all of that. He placed the sun, right, our star, and the moon in the perfect spots, and he tilted the earth just right, so we have seasons and we have tides. We have warmth and cold and light and dark and rain and snow, and we begin to see this rhythm that he is creating. These patterns that he is etching into creation. He places creatures in the sea and he places animals on the land. He is also creating the capacity within them to procreate. We read that. Just like we saw with the plants, the capacity for creation to be fruitful and multiply. That is, for creation to also create. He made that possible. And this, of course, culminates in the creation of humans on the sixth day. I don't want to go too deep into creation of us, of humans. We'll get into that a little more next week, except to say that we know. That when he made humans, there was something different. Right? Not only was man the only thing he created in his own image, which we read, but man was the only thing he created specifically from creation. He got his hands dirty, so to speak, when he made man. I think this speaks again to the personal nature by which God regards man, that he speaks all of creation into existence by his word, but when he creates man, we get this picture of God forming man from the dust. He's reaching down and he's forming woman from the man's rib. The hands of God made us. And those same hands that formed man were later pierced for us, weren't they? The very breath that he breathed into man to give us life, that same breath was exhausted for our salvation. There is this personal connection that I don't want us to miss, right? A connection that is lost in other religions, frankly. That our God, the true God, is very personal. He's a very personal God. And all this demonstrates the way in which God forms the formless. He brings order to chaos. And if our God can place the galaxies, which he did, if our God can place the galaxies, if he can define their vast orbits, if he can hold back the depths of the oceans from the dry land, does he also not have a method for your formation? If our God is so great and powerful that he can hold the stars in his hands, do you suppose that your problems are too great for him? Does the God who breathe life into your lungs not care for you? Does the God who gives every plant and every animal everything they need, is he not going to do the same for you? If everything we see came to be, because God said, let it be, and he continues to maintain every molecule of creation for his divine purpose, why do we not think that that doesn't include you? The world seems chaotic and unpredictable, right? Only because we aren't God. But he has long ago ordered the chaos. And he is presently working all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. The question is not whether or not he will provide for you. The question is not whether or not he will protect you, but the question is, do you love him? And trust that he will. Or do we suppose that his provisions stopped after Christ? He does have a plan for you. And certainly included in that plan is our last point this morning. And that is stewardship of creation. This starts with what we read starting the sermon in verse 28, saying that, and God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Our text there told us that God has a plan for humanity, and that plan was to fill the earth and subdue it. You know what subdue means? Definitionally speaking, it means to bring under control, to bring order to something. So God orders the chaos, right? Or he subdues the rest of creation. But on earth, he tells man, now you do what I have done. Put it another way, imitate me, he says. I've given you everything you need, and I will provide for everything you need along the way, multiply, and order, subdue the earth. And far too often we assume that this command was dismissed or forgotten after the fall, right? We do, whether or not you intend to do that or not. That we were supposed to subdue the earth before the fall, right? Before we fell, but when sin entered the world, the plan was changed, and now we just throw up our hands and we're just waiting for Christ to fix everything for us. Is that what he wants of us? Is that how Christ taught us to pray? Brother David, this morning providentially said the Lord's Prayer, Our Father in heaven, holy is your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You mean he wants his kingdom to come to earth? You mean he wants it to come to earth? Is that what Christ commands in his great commission? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Y'all sit tight and hang on, and I'll be back soon. Is that what he says? No. Go disciple the world, he says. Make followers of me. Make people follow me, teach them to obey me. Is he not making all things new? Is he not bringing everything in subjection under his feet? Then let us fill the earth and subdue it. Let us actually try to fulfill the Great Commission with the expectation that we will be successful in our efforts to bring order to the chaos because we are imitating God by doing so. Those who are here with us on Wednesday, perhaps uh, this past Wednesday, perhaps sensed some of my frustration. But I am so tired, church, and I'll still express my frustration, of people assuming that the world is going to end tomorrow. And not just because there's an eclipse and everyone loses their minds, right? But too many Christians live like they assume that the world is gonna end tomorrow. What if it isn't? What if the Great Commission is actually successful? What if the command from Genesis still applies and our call is still to fill the earth and subdue it? Not as perfect prefall humans, but now as redeemed people, we get to see and be a part of Christ making all things new. A saved people who get to bring order to the earth? A people who have the opportunity to imitate our Creator? What if there are a thousand generations still to come? Can you say they're not? There might be. What if everything is working out perfectly according to his plan? What if everything is going to be okay? What if everything is going to be good, even? How will you live then? Will you work and have rest? And ultimately our rest has already come, right? Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, and just as God rested from his work, we read that, we too can find rest from our work in Christ. And I think the fact that God establishes this pattern of work and rest in creation should indicate to us that the business of subduing and discipling requires rest. Because it's hard work. Sunday is great, right? But Monday always comes. We run the race, we labor on, we rest, and then we run some more. And we can do this with confidence because we don't labor in vain, because Christ, He is our eternal rest. We do have that already. He won. He brought order. He saved us. He is making all things new, and we will be with him forever. I just happen to believe that the Bible teaches that we've got a little more work to do on the road to get there. And I'm happy personally. I'm happy and I'm excited to serve him along the way. I'm not waiting for the world to end. If it does, I'll take it. But I'm happy and excited to serve him now. And I hope you are too. Honestly, I feel like I could have preached ten sermons just on that first chapter. Um, but I promised we would get through the Genesis in 20-ish sermons. So that's the beginning, right? This is the beginning, and I guess kind of the end as well. And next week we we fall. Uh next week we will fall, right? We're going to read that, not laughing about us falling. It's terrible, but next week we will fall. And the story of redemption uh really begins there. Uh so make sure you're here for that. I do hope that the Lord blesses our efforts through Genesis. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so very much again for your word. Uh we thank you for the hope that you've given us in Christ, that uh, Lord, that we can see the beauty and the glory and all of the plans and providences that you have given to us in your creation story. Lord, I hope and pray that we see your majesty, Lord, your transcendence in creation. May we look to you in light of that and trust you, Lord, that you have everything under control. You have planned this, Lord. We don't have to live in fear of what you are doing for us. We know that you are here for us. We know that you have planned our days. We know that you have prepared our good works and we are walking in them. Lord, help us to walk then and trust in you. Lord, free us from the fear of uncertainty. Because with you, Lord, nothing is uncertain. We thank you for that, Lord. I pray that you would open our hearts now as we receive this supper, Lord. We testify, Lord, that you have died for us and you will forgive our sins, and we ask you for that forgiveness. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.