Order From Chaos - Creation Day 2 Series

Dr. Bradford Reaves

Crossway Christian Fellowship

Hagerstown, MD, USA

www.mycrossway.org

View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118

Before anything else happened… there was God. Scripture DIDN'T start out: “In the beginning, the earth was without form and void.” OR “In the beginning before the sun and solar system existed” OR “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.”

It simply says "In the beginning… GOD” Many Christians mistakenly believe that the Bible is Geo-centric and God inserted Himself into life. That’s not true. The Bible is actually “Theo-centric” It’s centered on God. God is the central character in the whole book. Everything in scripture is built - not so much around the earth or man - but around God. We may be actors on the grand stage of life, but God owns the stage. He owns the props. He owns us. Everything that you see and touch in this world - belongs to God.

A group of scientists got together and decided they no longer needed God. One of them said to God, “We’ve decided we no longer need you. We can do all kinds of things through science. We can even clone people and make body parts, so we just don’t need you anymore.”

God listened patiently, “Let’s have a man-making contest just like in the days of Adam.”

The scientist agreed and bent down to grab himself a handful of dirt.

And God smiled and said, “No, no, no – you get your own dirt.”

It’s all God’s.

Everything is His.

Once you figure that out, everything else in Scripture begins to make sense.

This past week, I had the joy of witnessing some beautiful sunrises. I love that morning time when the light is just beginning to emerge from the horizon. Can you imagine the first morning on this earth as God created it? Day 2 saw the light from God’s radiance dissipate the darkness for the first time.

Sunrises, like all of creation, communicated a message to us from God that says, “Worship me.” Over the last couple of decades, there is an emergence of a worship movement. We assimilate all kinds of elements in a worship environment to stimulate the senses: lights, fog, music, emotion, art, and so on. I don’t think the problem today is knowing how to worship, but rather understanding who we are really worshiping. That really is the starting point for us to worship God.

When we understand God as Creator, then we understand the rest of Scripture. We understand the answers to our origin. We understand God as our redeemer and therefore we understand the answers to our own meaning. That is why studying this passage is so important.

Two American Sailors were in London on liberty and went to the local bar where they indulged themselves beyond their senses in the drink. As they stumbled out of the bar and into the thick London fog, they realized they were lost. Upon seeing an officer in the British Royal Navy, they stumbled over to him and slurred out, “Hey there buddy, can you tell us how to get back to our ship?” To which the Admiral responded, “Don’t you know who I am?” The one sailor looked at the other and said, “Now we’re really in trouble. We don’t know where we are and he doesn’t who he is!” (Zacharias)

That’s the condition we are finding ourselves in the world today and it is only getting worse. We have people who are denying their own biology. But the church isn’t immune to this, we bear some of the responsibility! So many right here in the church have lost our way because we’ve stopped look to God for answers and instead we look at God as part of the conundrum. There are four questions in life for all of us:

Origin

Meaning

Morality

Destiny

Where do I come from?

What gives life meaning?

How do I differentiate between good and bad?

Where am I going when I die?

I have told you over the last few weeks how evolution cannot answer any of these questions and, in fact, evolution robs us of these answers and our identity. Evolutionary science was designed to destroy the God of the Bible and is fundamentally incompatible with creation. Genesis on the other hand answers all of these questions directly and they continued to be answered throughout Scripture.

Evolution is a pattern of death. It is the survival of the fittest. There is no death in the creation narrative until man sins and sin corrupts creation. Creation and God as Sovereign Creator isn’t just a topic here in Genesis, it is a theme throughout the Scriptures and it is prevalent even in the New Testament, the Gospels, and Revelation.

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This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 13:35 ESV)