We Believe In Creation Series

We continue a series of messages entitled Creed: 9 Essentials to the Christian Faith. We are exploring the beliefs that form the theological center of Christianity. It is a series devoted to the discovery of what you believe and why it matters. Each of these beliefs serves as lynchpins to the Christian faith, so that if you were to remove one of them you would see the Christian faith crumble. We have given four reasons why your beliefs matter over the past several weeks:

1. Beliefs Matter to God (June 24)

2. Beliefs Matter to Your Church Family (July 1)

3. Beliefs Matter to Your Family (June 17)

4. Beliefs Matter to You

Today I want to explore how and why you were created. Knowing where we came from answers the question, “Who Am I?” If I am the product of an evolutionary chance, than I have no unique identity. My hope is infuse each of you with a sense of worth and dignity and purpose about why you are here on earth.

Today’s Scripture

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’

27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 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.’” (Genesis 1:26-28)

Overview of Genesis 1

One of the first things that strike readers of the Bible is the brevity of the story of creation. For those of you who remember using Yahoo as a search engine before the advent of Google, can remember how Yahoo would jam everything on to the front page of their site. In contrast, Google has as its front page, a stark and bare-face page with no advertisement. Google’s search engine page is clean and simple. This is similar to the account given to us in the Bible of the beginning of time. The Bible gives just two chapters to tell the story of how all things came into existence. In contrast, the Bible gives thirteen chapters to tell the story of Abraham.

The Bible’s creation account is introduced simply: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). For all the controversy surrounding the origins of the universe in our day and in biblical times, this account is described by one Jewish rabbi as “tranquil [and] undisturbed by … dispute…” The Bible simply presents the account of God’s creation of all things, and humans in particular, with no reference to the controversy surrounding it. Further, it offers no argument for the existence of God. Instead, it simply presumes He exists.

As we overview the beginning of the Bible itself, take special note that God Himself is all over the place in this account as He is mentioned thirty five times. God is the main character in this story as He is throughout the Bible. Now, this one introductory verse (Genesis 1:1) is followed by seven paragraphs describing each of the days of creation. Each paragraph is devoted to a day of activity where the universe is created. You can easily see the paragraph divisions for you’ll see the repeated phrase, “And there was evening and there was morning, the … day.”

Throughout the creation account, God makes eleven statements that call objects into being. The shortest of God’s statements is found in verse three, “Let there be light.” God speaks three times on Day Six which is our focus today. It is here that the Bible’s describes the creation of humanity. Of the six days of creation (remember God rests on Day Seven and is silent), Day Six is the most significant. More space and detail are given to Day Six than any of the previous five days. God performs two acts of creation on Day Six – He first creates animals, or what the text calls “living creatures” in Genesis 1:24-26, and second, He creates humanity. And while it would benefit us greatly to examine the entire scope of creation, I want to focus specifically on God’s creation of humanity.

For while this story from Genesis 1 shows the significance of the creation of everything, the focus of the story is clearly on the creation of humanity. It’s as if the storyteller, Moses, takes the camera and zooms in to allow us to inspect mankind’s origins more closely.