A New World Series

This morning we’re beginning a new series titled “Making All Things New.” We’ll be spending eight weeks looking at how God interacted with His creation and chosen people, laying the groundwork for everything to be in place to send His Son into the world.

Growing up, we watched “The Sound of Music” every year. There’s a scene in the movie in which Maria teaches the Von Trapp children how to sing. They break out in song as she informs them, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with ABC, when you sing you begin with do re mi.” When you want to know God, you should also start at the very beginning. Please turn with me to Genesis 1 (read, pray).

I once heard a story about a child who was intently drawing a picture. Mom got curious and asked what she was drawing. Her daughter told her she was drawing a picture of God. Mom responded, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” The child looked up and answered, “They will when I’m done!” That’s what I want to do today- begin to draw a picture of who God is.

The first thing we learn about God from our passage is that God is eternal. The first four words of scripture are “In the beginning, God.” This is not a fairy tale story starting off with once upon a time, it’s a historical narrative written down by Moses. This phrase informs us that God has no beginning. Before He begins to create, God is already there.

In contrast, the secular world promotes this idea of the Big Bang Theory. Too often, it gets taught as fact and not the theory it actually is. I will always appreciate my 7th grade science teacher, Mr. Kinna, because when it was time to take the test about the earth’s origins, he added an extra credit question at the end allowing us to explain how we thought the world began.

I was curious about the statistical probability that life could have happened by chance with the Big Bang being the origin. Stephen Hawking wrote that if the rate of the universe's expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in 1015 the universe would have re-collapsed. P.C.W. Davies concluded that a change in the strength of gravity or the weak force by one part in 10100 would have prevented a life-permitting universe. And Roger Penrose determined that the odds of the Big Bang's low entropy condition existing by chance are on the order of one out of 101230. Those were just a few examples I came across.

You see, the answer to how the universe began can’t be answered beyond the level of theory by science. At some point, you have to make a decision to put your faith in an origin. You have to determine whether you will place your faith in the idea that matter, which according to the Law of Conservation, cannot be created nor destroyed, somehow was created from nothing. Or you can place your faith in a higher being who was already there from the get-go. I choose to believe in the eternal God.

God continues to reveal His eternal nature throughout scripture. For example, when Moses was talking with God at the burning bush, in Exodus 3:14, God reveals His name (read). I Am Who I Am- He has no beginning, He has no end. The God who was, and is, and is to come is the God who sent Moses to free His people from Egypt.

He confirms His eternal nature in Revelation 1:8 (read). Why claim to be the Alpha and Omega? They are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the equivalent of A and Z in our alphabet. It’s an even better statement than Amazon’s slogan- we’ve got you covered from A to Z. God has no beginning or end, He IS the beginning and the end. There was nothing before Him, He just always was and always will be. I’m reminded of the worship song we sing sometimes. My Savior loves, my Savior lives, my Savior’s always there for me. My God He was, my God, He is, my God is always gonna be. Our God is eternal.

The second thing we learn about God is that He is the Trinity, the Godhead, Three-In-One. The Jews declare this fact (without even realizing it) when they quote the Shema, found in Deuteronomy 6:4 (read). The Hebrew word when it says God the first time is actually in the plural form, so it’s a declaration that this plurality is actually a singularity. There is only one God, whom we know to show Himself as three persons- Father, Son, Holy Spirit.