Life is full of beginnings. We start each day with a new dawn of expectation. We start each year with a resolution and an expectation of things to come. We find new friends or make an acquaintance a friend, it is a new beginning.
These changes and beginnings are all from God. He gives us the sunshine we enjoy each day. He is timeless, but He gives us the gift of hope for better days and a peace that passes all understanding.
1. In our busy lives, destracted lives, let's try to not only remember God is in control, but let's let Him take control over new areas of our lives. New beginnings.
"Dear God, grant me the serenity to change the things I can change, to accept the things I cannot, and turn them over to You. Help me to go to You often in your Word, that never returns void. Amen"
B.J. Thomas wrote a song about robins weeping and changing seasons: The chorus of the song was :"I'm so lonesome I could cry..." To go through life without God is a lonesome life. The book of Genesis shows us not only how God loves us, but how we need to never fear. That He is the God of new beginning, changing things and bringing us into a relationship with Him.
"In the beginning, God created...." and in John 1 it says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Trust God for those beginnings. Pray about the new things that come into your life. Be willing to change, be willing to grow.
2. This book of Genesis is also about relationships. How does God work in those relationships? How can we strengthen our relationships with Him and with others in our midst?
The Book of Genesis shows his relationship with Adam, how he gave him life and dominion and a wife. It shows how relationships are formed, how families form and grow, and how the relationship can thrive in harmony with God and be destroyed when we disobey and turn from God. Our relationship with God should turn on who He is and what he wants from us, what purpose we were made for, and how we can rely on him.
In the new testament, in the book of Colossians, we are told that not only has God in Christ created the world but that by Him all things consist. That means God is ready and available to go with us to our daily battles, to reach out to us in all the things that come our way. He is powerful and helpful, a God that creates and runs this universe, yet he cares for you and he cares for me in all my trials, sorrows, addictions, and pain.
3. The Book of Genesis tells us of great and mighty men of God. Men like Abraham, like Moses and Joseph. This book shows their triumphs of faith, their walks of faith, their humanness, and their failings. Yet we see in this book, that God is sovereign over all and looks after every step we take and every move we make. He is the God who is sovereign, allowing and directing the events of Abraham's life, Moses journey and Joseph's trials.
The book of Genesis points to God's redemptive work, and rescuing work in the lives of these men and women of this book. How God provides for Abraham with Sarah and how God worked in Moses' life with the and those that sought his life at an early age. How he kept Joseph from sin at the hand of Potopher's wife. Great men of God, great trials that God brought them through, better and more whole.
As we close this morning, this first chapter sets the scene for all that would take place in this entire book. God creats a man and a woman further on, and their lives of togetherness. Then tragic fall, then a son named Cain and another son named Abel. Each step leading to redemption for His people, restoration from the Fall. Each step ordered and ordained to help us see the hope in our dispair, the rescue in our trial, the escape where there is no escape. A God of unconditional love. I like that. I am so glad God leads me on and on and on! And I will make it with Him by my side. You can make it too. God will teach us the right way, but we have to look to Him to find it!
My challenge this morning is two-fold: Look closely at this book of Genesis, the first chapter and the stories in that entire book. Try to apply those lessons others have learned. Second, don't stop there. Move on and read the rest of the book, read those Psalms, the Prophets and the New Testament as well. Be people of the Book, but more than that, people of God who read this book!
