Before The Beginning Series

The Bible is a single story. It doesn’t appear to be one story. The Bible is a long book, written over 1,500 years and in numerous different genres. But if you look closely enough, you’ll find one cohesive story. It is one single story with unity and a compelling narrative. And we can summarize the Bible’s single storyline in just four sentences…

God made the world.

We rebelled against our ruler.

God reentered the world to redeem us.

And God will remake the world.

Series Preview

Over the next seven weeks, I want to try an experiment with you – something I have never done. I want to give the whole big picture of the Bible in one series. And here’s a series preview. We’ll begin in the beginning with the first several chapters in Genesis. Here we will see how it all began and how it all went wrong. Then we will move to the middle of the Bible and see what Jesus did to make everything right. What God did in Christ to correct the mess of this world. And then… we’ll finish at the end of the Bible, in the book of Revelation, and see how it’s all going to come together. Throughout the seven weeks together, it will be my aim to unpack those four sentences carefully.

God made the world.

We rebelled against our ruler.

God reentered the world to redeem us.

And God will remake the world.

Let’s go together.

Today, I want us to look at what is happening before anything happens. I want to invite you to climb into a time machine and travel back through history to when there was nothing – nothing but God and God alone. Before any one of 118 elements on the periodic table were created. Before even an atom or molecule came into existence. Look back with me through the annals of time to what God was doing when He was alone. Let’s look not so much for curiosity’s sake or even to fill our minds with high and lofty thoughts that lend themselves to philosophical matters. Let’s look in order that our hearts would be inflamed with a love for God. Today, I want to move you – to move you to worship God.

Today’s Scripture Passage

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

“5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. … 21 I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, maybe with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:5, 20-26)

1. In the Beginning there was God

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

Only seven words in the original language but 7 words that speak with force and power. In the beginning, God created everything. But I don’t want to focus so much on what God did – the act of creation. Instead, I want you to focus on who God is in the 1st half of verse one: “In the beginning, God” (Genesis 1:1a). Only four words: “In the beginning, God” (Genesis 1:1a). It’s no accident that Moses talks about God Himself in the very first verse of the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible. In fact, God’s name is mentioned some 35 times in the first chapter alone. And it is here we learn at least two important truths about God.

1.1 Self-Existent