We begin a new Series: Kosmeo
kos-meh’-o: to put in order; make ready; prepare; to adorn; embellish with honor
It’s where we get cosmetics = to adorn
And it comes from the Greek word Cosmos = an orderly harmonious systematic universe.
Our God is the God of Order.
Genesis 1:1-2 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
Let’s hear from our scientific experts:
NASA: "The universe was created sometime between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago from a cosmic explosion that hurled matter and in all directions."
UC Berkeley: "The big bang theory states that at some time in the distant past there was nothing. A process known as vacuum fluctuation created what astrophysicists call a singularity. From that singularity, which was about the size of a dime, our Universe was born."
University of Michigan: "About 15 billion years ago a tremendous explosion started the expansion of the universe. This explosion is known as the Big Bang. At the point of this event all of the matter and energy of space was contained at one point. What existed prior to this event is completely unknown and is a matter of pure speculation. This occurrence was not a conventional explosion but rather an event filling all of space with all of the particles of the embryonic universe rushing away from each other."
PBS: There was an "initial explosion" of a "primordial atom which had contained all the matter in the universe."
Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
For the atheistic scientist, or the scientist who thinks there is no place for God in science (keep that God-stuff in the field of philosophy), their “Hebrews 11:3 would state: “by faith we understand that space, time, matter and energy somehow exploded from essentially nothing in the sudden big bang that was the birth of our universe.”
Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, there is no God.”
Blowing things up: the explosion never results in order, only disorder.
Let’s turn to the trustworthy account in Scripture: Genesis 1. Check out the ORDER of creation.
Day 1: Light created; it was good. God separated the light from darkness (day & night)
There was evening and there was morning – the first day (already a system was in place)
Day 2: God created an expanse (sky) to separate water above from water below
There was evening and there was morning – the second day
Day 3: God gathered the water together, forming dry ground (land & seas); God saw it was good
Let the land produce vegetation (according to their kinds); God saw it was good
There was evening and there was morning – the third day
Day 4: God created lights in the sky to separate day from night and to mark seasons, days, years
God created the sun and the moon and the stars; God saw it was good
There was evening and there was morning – the fourth day
Day 5: God created fish and birds (according to their kinds); God saw it was good
God blessed them and told them to be fruitful and increase in number
There was evening and there was morning – the fifth day
Day 6: God created land creatures (according to their kinds); God saw it was good
God made man in His image, gave them purpose; blessed them and told them to be fruitful
God gave them food to eat (plants and seeds)
God saw ALL that He had made, and it was very good
There was evening and there was morning – the sixth day
Job 25:2 “Dominion and awe belong to God; he establishes order in the heights of heaven.”
It was all very good! It brought pleasure to the CREATOR and peace to the CREATED! That’s an important truth to remember throughout this series: when we submit to God’s established order, it brings pleasure to Him and peace to us.
1 Corinthians 14:33 “For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace.”
So what was God’s established order? Two things I want to highlight:
1. God’s established order had designated places
God, the Creator – we are to have no other gods before Him!
And the Created:
Mankind
Rest of creation: animals and plants
Of course, some people today do not make a distinction between humans and animals – we’re all part of the animal kingdom.
But even my three year old daughter can tell that she is different than Daisy, the hamster we just welcomed into our home yesterday. Scriptures explains the distinction:
Genesis 1:26 “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”
This is affirmed in Psalm 8 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
This distinction explains things like love, ethics, morality, emotions. Humans were created in God’s image.
And these two passages of Scripture lead us to the next aspect of God’s established order:
2. God’s established order had designated plans and purposes
Sun was to give light by day, the moon by night, and to mark seasons, days and years
The vegetation provided food for all the animals and mankind (ALL vegitarians)
Animals were to be fruitful and multiply
Mankind was to be fruitful and multiply and rule over (subdue) the earth; caretaker
When all of creation understood their designated place and fulfilled their designated purpose, it brought pleasure to the Creator and peace to the Created.
But soon CHAOS broke out. We get the word Chaos from the Greek word Xaos.
Remember the word Cosmos: an orderly harmonious systematic universe. Chaos is its opposite.
There was a rebellion against God’s established order
1. Rebellion against God’s designated place for mankind
Genesis 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Romans 1:25 “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Created – who is forever praised.”
2. Rebellion against God’s designated purpose for mankind
Genesis 3:6 “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.”
James 3:16 “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”
Our sin and rebellion brings no pleasure to the Creator and no peace for us! When we are not in a right relationship with our Creator, there is no peace in our hearts, in our minds, in our finances, in our homes in our marriages, in our daily lives. There is only disorder. Oh, we do our best to bring some sense of order to our lives; we think we have peace until we know REAL PEACE.
So we come back to our Greek word, Kosmeo:
Kosmeo: To Put in Order
Matthew 12:43-44 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.” (also Luke 11:25)
Kosmeo: Make Ready
Matthew 25:7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.”
Kosmeo: Embellish with Honor
Titus 2:9-10 “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make (adorn) the teaching about God our Savior attractive.”
Kosmeo: To Adorn
1 Peter 3:3-5 “Your beauty (kosmos) should not come from outward adornment (kosmos), such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands…”
We’ll talk more about these in the coming weeks as we allow God to bring order back to every area of our lives.
But first things first. We’ve rebelled against our Creator, the God of the Universe. Sin and death have entered His created cosmos, bringing chaos. The solution is the cross where Jesus took our place and took upon himself the punishment for our sin. Put your faith in Jesus!
Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
The life, death and resurrection brought pleasure to the Creator and peace to the Created!
James 4:7 “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
Submit = to put under; put yourself back in your designated place! Repent of your rebellion against your Creator, be reconciled with God, put your faith in Him, not yourselves.
Philippians 3:20-21 “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
Pray.
