In The Beginning GOD!!!
The Story – Chapter One
Video: from CCVonline
Maple Grove…welcome to chapter one of The Story!
AND – let me tell you, you could not have picked a better time to be in this room, to be @ His church that meets at 3210 Proffit Rd.
BECAUSE - today is chapter one of a 31 week journey into God’s Word.
YEAH – for 31 weeks… from now until the beginning of September we will be reading this book that tells the greatest, most compelling story of all
Time.
AND LISTEN - Tim, Laurie - if we really lean into This Story during the next 31 weeks we will have a comprehensive (big picture) understanding of the Bible like never before. AND UNDERSTANDING – that will serve us well in life and in this journey to become who we were created to be.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
– 2 Timothy 3:16,17
LIKE I SAID - we are only at the beginning of this journey… (chapter 1)
BUT – I don’t think I need to tell you that something pretty awesome has already begun in this place…
WOW!
Was last Sunday awesome and off the charts or what?
YEAH – God’s presence and power was all over this place last week…as we introduced The Story and talked about we are going these next 31 weeks… You could feel it.
HEY – if you missed this message you really need to check it out online... UNDERSTAND - you do not want to miss any of this incredible journey into God's Word…
How to get the most out of The Story?
1) Get a copy and read the chapter each week
2) Talk about The Story with your family
3) Join a life group
4) Share The Story with someone who needs Jesus
NOW – we are going to be covering a ton of ground every week in this journey… This week we are covering 9 chapters.
BTW – raise your hands, if you read chapter one this week…
AWESOME – this week you will need to read chapter two.
MG – are you ready? OKAY, let’s do this. Turn in your Bible to page one. I’ve always wanted to say that.
NOW - you know, the greatest literary works always captivate and grab you right from the get-go; and the Bible is no exception… I MEAN – right out of the gates This Story jumps out and takes a hold of us…
UNDERSTAND – The Story (God’s Story, The Bible) begins with the most: controversial, life-giving, pride attacking, helpful, haunting line that has ever been written in, literature…
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
– Genesis 1:1
AND LISTEN - if we can believe the first line of the Bible we should not have any problem believing anything else that’s found in God’s Word.
I MEAN - why balk at the concept of God preparing a fish to swallow a man named Jonah and for him to live inside of it for a couple of days? Or why question whether or not Daniel could be thrown in a lion’s den with ferocious lions and walk out of there unscathed without a scratch on him? Why question if God is big enough to fed 5000 with some fish and bread and braise someone from the dead?
I MEAN - if GOD can speak the universe into existence, all these other things are merely child’s play for Him.
In the beginning GOD…
I love it.
The curtain rises…
The spotlight turns on – and shines upon, God.
YEAH - right out of the gates we know exactly who the main character in this story is, we know who it all is about… It’s all about God.
THE ONE – who is before all things over all things and he holds all things together.
This week in my copy of the story I highlighted every use of the word ‘God’
In this opening Act… (I even highlighted the pronouns that we obviously about Him).
In the beginning God created
NOW UNDERSTAND - as we read the creation account in Genesis 1, it is not primarily an exhaustive, scientific text. YEAH - it does deal with matters of science – creation and matter and life and such. But that’s not its primary function.
Galileo said it well. He said, “The Bible is not preeminently concerned with telling us how the heavens go. The Bible is, instead, most concerned with telling us how to go to Heaven.”
AND SO - as we read this, it will not answer every question we have about how the heavens go, but it will point us to the God who will bring us into Heaven. AND THAT’S - the point of the book.
NOW - the Hebrew word translated ‘created’ is a word that is only used for divine creative activity and it means to bring into existence something out of nothing.
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… - Hebrews 11:3
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. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light…
- Genesis 1:1-3
Formless, empty and dark…
THEN GOD SPEAKS… and things light up, order comes from chaos, the earth begins to fill up… YOU KNOW - those 3 words pretty much describe my life before God began shaping and forming it into what He had always meant for it to be… ‘formless, empty, dark’
AND – to be honest, I have found that anytime I some serious drifting from those 3 bad boys come riding back in and try to define my life.
You know, I really like the picture of the SPIRIT hovering, just waiting to be unleashed, to create.
By the way – that same SPIRIT is hovering right now… over us. Over this place. Over our lives. Over His church. Waiting to be unleashed. Waiting to create.
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day…
DAY ONE – is done… and then God keeps on creating… using the same basic pattern…
• The announcement – God said
• The Command – let there be…
• The report – and it was so
• The evaluation – and it was good
• The temporal framework – morning came, evening came, day number…
Again day one light… AND…
On Day 2 – water and sky
On Day 3 - land
On Day 4 – sun, moon, stars
On Day 5 – fish and birds
On Day 6 - animals
YEAH – that’s some pretty impressive stuff… the heavens and the earth, billions of galaxies, Mt Everest, oceans, rivers, birds, animals… BUT – do you know what… all of that is just a display case for God’s real masterpiece…
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
You might want to circle a couple of words there. You might circle us and our. Notice God doesn’t say, “Let me make man in my image.” He says, “Let us make man in our image.” So at creation there is God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
MAN - is a unique creation unlike any of God’s other created beings. UNDERSTAND - we didn’t evolve from a lower life form. We are the image bearers of God. AND - our purpose is to reflect the image of God, to glorify God and to enjoy a life changing relationship with Him both now and forever…
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
LIKE I SAID - The Story (God’s Story, The Bible) begins with the most: controversial, life-giving, pride attacking, helpful, haunting line that has ever been written in, literature…
AND - Maple Grove… I believe that Genesis chapter one is true!
YES - I believe that in the beginning God create the heavens and the earth.
I believe that the universe and life itself is the direct result of a GOD who brought all things into existence and not the result of random chance.
NOW – I believe this for several reasons…
#1 - God said He created the heavens and the earth…
I MEAN – He makes that pretty clear right out of the gates, in the first chapter of His Word. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
AND – God makes them same claim in many other places…
Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing. – Is 40:26
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him.
He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. – Col 1:15-17
#2 – Design implies a designer
When I look at the world I see evidence of design, everywhere.
Human body…
HEY – check out this quote about the human eye
"To suppose that the human eye with so many parts all working together could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
Anyone know who said that?
"To suppose that the human eye with so many parts all working together could have been formed by natural selection seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."
- Charles Darwin
(Origin of Species, a chapter called ‘Difficulties with the Theory’)
Actually, the name of his book is a lot, lot longer than that. It is The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Penned in 1859.
AND - what he’s saying is this. Certain animals are superior and destroy the inferior animals. Certain races are superior and destroy the inferior races.
NOW - they don’t usually tell us the whole title for the book, ‘cause they want us to be atheists and evolutionists, but not racists. They’re tricky.
Kinda like that guy who shows up in Genesis 3. They’re tricky like that. They only tell ya bits and pieces, and they don’t tell ya the rest. Okay?
Human eye
Now by anybody’s standards, the human eye is a marvel. It’s made up of a hundred million cells. There are seven million special vision cones that fire up information to the brain whenever any degree of light comes their way.
And here’s a little trivia… On average, how many shades of color can the normal human eye distinguish between? Take a guess.
• How many think about a hundred?
• A number between hundred to five hundred?
• How many of you are afraid to guess?
• You know what the right answer is?
A thousand. The average human eye can differentiate between a thousand different shades of color.
AND - Beyond that, our eyes have the most sophisticated auto focusing capability ever designed. Think about it - we can be sitting in a restaurant and in the space of a mere millisecond, read a menu on the far wall, then focus on the subtle smile forming on the face of our dinner companion, and then spot a hair in our salad.
We can do that in just about that (snap fingers) amount of time. No man-made device can or will ever be able to match the complexity, sophistication, and effectiveness of the human eye, which obviously is just one component of our marvelously designed bodies.
Well, one day after studying the human eye, Charles Darwin in a moment of unusual candor said, ‘wow, no way this just happened by chance… “
CONSIDER - your heart--it’s not an accidental organ by chance evolution. It has been perfectly designed to pump 2,000 gallons of blood a day. Look at the kidneys and lungs. Your lungs are more than air sacs--they’re designed to filter oxygen out of the air you breathe. These organs contain 300 billion tiny blood vessels called capillaries. Your entire blood supply washes through your lungs once every minute.
I read that an adult human brain contains over a hundred thousand billion electrical connections – more than all the electrical connections in all the electrical appliances in the world.
Your tongue has 8,000 taste buds. Eating is boring without it.
Your ears—do you think it was an accident they were designed to capture sound. The grooves, bumps, and ridges were created to catch passing sound waves and channel them into the eardrum.
Your hands were made to grip and feel; the nose to smell. AND - the nose was put right above our mouth so we could enjoy the flavor of food better. Imagine if you were made differently. IF the ears were inside out, or if the nose was upside down--you’d drown every time it rained. Or if your mouth had 2 tongues?
LISTEN – the human body is visible evidence of a Great designer. A God.
Scientist Dr Walter Bradley says; “the mathematical odds of assembling a living organism are so astronomical that nobody believes that random chance accounts for the origin of life. Even if you optimized the conditions, it wouldn’t work. If you took all the carbon in the universe and put it on the face of the earth, allowed it to chemically react at the most rapid rate possible for a billion years, the odds of creating just one functional protein molecule would be 1 chance in 10 with 60 zeros after it…
And that’s for just 1 functional protein molecule… When you consider the billions of molecules that make up human life – I think it takes a lot more faith to believe it just happened. [now that number 1 in 10 to the 60th power - is a really big number - and to really appreciate it, LET – me ask you a question, how many inches in diameter is the visible universe? the visible universe is a about 10 to the 28th inches in diameter
Biochemist Michael Behe says that the probability of linking together just 100 amino acids to create one protein molecule by chance would be the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand somewhere in the Sahara Desert – and doing it not just once but three times…
The distinguished astronomer Sir Fredrick Hoyle put it colorfully when he said that the chance occurrence of just one protein cell is about as likely as a tornado whirling through a junkyard and accidentally assembling a fully functional Boeing 747.
we are fearfully and wonderfully made..” (Ps 139:14)
The human body – speaks to the design of God….
And so does creation… HEY – do you want to know if God exists look up;
The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or a word; their voice is silent in the skies; yet their message has gone out to all the earth, and their words to all the world. - Ps 19:1-4
Do you want to know if God exists look up!!! Earth is a big hunk of rock. (24,000 miles around)… YET – 1 million earths would fit into the Sun (our closet star)… YEAH - I’d say the sun is pretty big… 93 million miles away and it still can warm this entire planet. It’s huge. Flames leap up thousands of miles at a time… BUT – as big as the sun is there are some stars so large that 500 million suns could fit inside of them.
AND – consider all the necessary factors for life to exist on earth…
NOW – back in the 1960’s scientist believed that the earth was not all that special and that there were 30,000-60,000 other planets out there that
Could support life
1) Right part of the galaxy
2) Right type of Sun
3) Right atmosphere
4) Right amount of metal to have a molten core
5) Right ratio of land to water
6) Right moon (tilt of the earth)
7) Other planets are like an offensive line
(.0000000 a bunch more zeros 1… mathematically we shouldn’t be here)
All these planets, stars and galaxies are constantly moving through space. Designed with beauty and symmetry. Even our own earth-travels 66,000 miles an hour. You and I traveled 1 ½ million miles through space every day. I guess you and I have a right to feel a little tired tonight. LISTEN - space is not just randomness. There is awesome design. CHECKOUT – what one famous scientist said;
"Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe--a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble." Albert Einstein.
When I pick up a book – I assume there was an author
When I stand a building – though I was not here at the time, I assume there was a builder and not a tornado that hit the Lowes down the road…
Design implies a designer.
The greater the design.
The greater the designer.
#3 – The Alternative Has Too Many Unanswered Questions and an unacceptable conclusion
• There is no explanation of how we got from non-life to life or
how something came from nothing
I watched the movie Expelled this week towards the end of Ben Stine is interviewing Richard Dawkins…
Dawkins admits he has no clue how it all got started.
Then Ben Stine asks him if Intelligent design could be an answer to some of this…
“It could have come about the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved (probably by some kind of Darwinian means) to a very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded on perhaps this planet, that is a possibility…”
• The Fossil record does not support macroevolution
• We are an Accident and life has no ultimate purpsoe
Maple Grove this is important stuff to spend a little time talking about…
It is a big deal.
I am convinced the enemy wants people to doubt God and his word right out of the gates…
NOW – I can’t spend any more time talking about this… here are a few good resources if you would like to dig into this a little further.
Expelled – Ben Stein
The Privileged Planet
The case for the Creator
LIKE – is said earlier… God is the main character in The Story, in the beginning GOD… SO – this week as I struggled putting this stuff together, I keep asking myself… “Okay, if God is the main character in The Story (and He is)… THEN what does this Opening Act tell us about Him…”
NOW – I thought long and hard about this, seriously - for real…
AND HERE – is what I came up with… ARE – you ready?
God Is Great and God is God!
God Is Great
In the beginning God…
GOD is the main character… AND HE is GREAT!
LISTEN – the Psalmist was sooo right in Psalm 145.
Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise!
No one can measure his greatness. – Psalm 145:3
WOW!
Our God created EVERYTHING!
FROM – massive spinning galaxies
TO – the delicate wings of a butter fly
Our God took (and still takes by the way) that which is dark, empty and formless and HE fills us, forms us and gives us light and life
YOU KNOW – I really love these 2 phrases repeated throughout the Creation account…
God said let there be…
AND – there was.
AND – it was so.
UNDERSTAND – our God is great and He can do ANYTHING!
Is anything too hard for the Lord? - Genesis 18:14
Abram and Sarah
This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD… 2 KINGS 3:18
FILL A VALLEY FULL OF WATER WITHOUT RAIN
For nothing is impossible with God. – Luke 1:37
Like a Middle School aged girl giving birth to God
AND HEY – Tim, Laurie… Our God is GREAT! And isn’t that good to know?
God is Good
NOW – the word good is used several times in the creation account…
IN FACT – after every day of creating God said that is was good!
I THINK – most people take that to mean that God looked at his handiwork and thought to himself, ‘nice job!’ YOU KNOW – the kind of thing we would say to ourselves after painting a room in our house or building something… That’s good. OR LIKE ME – whenever I make a facebook post or comment. BUT YOU KNOW – it sounds a little bit silly when you stop to think about it… ‘God saw that the light was good’ LIKE – He didn’t know it was good until He paused to look at it. LIKE – it was an experiment. OR PERHAPS – he had tried before and it wasn’t good, but this time he got right?
NO – I am not buying that one either… Another option suggests that creation was good in a moral sense. But that doesn’t really work either. Dry land isn’t morally good or bad – it’s just dry land.
BUT GOD – declared it good. Good for what? Good for whom? God?
I MEAN – did God benefit from the division of the land from the sea or from the creation of birds or fish? Was it for God that certain plants were created for food and others for beauty? Would God who is Spirit really benefit from either.
IN – other parts of Scripture, we discover that all creation declares God’s glory… BUT – who exactly hears this declaration? We do!
UNDERSTAND – God declared each phase of creation good, because it was good for us…
It’s day 6… (light, water, land, sky, birds, fish, trees, animals, sun, moon and stars…) they are all here… and verse 26 starts out this way..
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness
Then…
As in, after everything is ready
As in, after the stage is set
He created man and woman…
Majestic sunsets – those are for you
The seasons that enable you plant and harvest – those are for you
The variety of fruit and vegatables you enjoy – those are for you
The fish, the shrimp, lobster and scallops – those are for you
The mountains, beaches, lakes, rivers, streams, desert plains and rainforests – yeah those are all for you too
UNDERSTAND IN – the beginning it was good because God is good, and there was
• more beauty than mankind could absorb
• more food then he could consume
there was
• uninterrupted fellowship between God and man
• no guilt
• no condemnation (the first 2 people never went to bed at night wondering where they stood with God.
• was freedom
freedom to decide
freedom to choose
freedom to trust
UNDERSTAND GOD completely trusted mankind with his creation. And everyday Adam and Eve choose whether or not they would be trustworthy. And for awhile they were. How long we do not know…
BUT – we do know, (page 5 of The Story records it) that one day mankind violated God’s trust and everything changed… Everything
Now I want to point out to you some of Satan’s tactics. The reason why is because he uses the same tactics with us in order to convince us to disobey what God tells us to do.
The first thing Satan does is, He sarcastically questions God’s Word. In the garden he said to Eve, “Did God really say you can’t eat from any of all this good fruit that’s around us?”
And then Satan denies God’s Word. He says, “You will not surely die.”
And then, thirdly, he reverses God’s Word. He says, “You will not surely die; instead your eyes will be opened and you’ll really live. You’ll see what living is really all about.”
Satan is the father of lies and Eve buys the lie. Look in your Bible at 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.”
Eve eats the fruit and from that moment the world will never be the same. The end of verse 6 says this: “She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.”
Now understand this, Eve should not have eaten it, but can I tell you something, gentlemen?
Adam should’ve protected his wife. Adam should’ve helped her resist the temptation, and then Adam should’ve resisted it himself.
But neither one of them did that.
Genesis 3:7 is a very interesting verse. It says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
To this point, up until now, they were living in perfect innocence, perfect harmony, completely uninhibited; and now they felt guilt and shame, and the first thing that they wanted to do was to hide themselves.
YOU SEE - sin causes everything to fall apart.
YES - God is good, but time and time again we see that man is not so good…
Adam and Eve son Cain murders his own brother…
And by the time we get the Genesis Chapter 6… the sin virus has become a global pandemic.
The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. – Genesis 6:5,6
QUESTION…
How does God respond to all of our not-so-goodness?
This bring us to the final point in your outline
What does chapter one of The Story tells us about the main character, about God… that
God Is Great
God Is Good
And that…
God Is Gooder Than We Could Have Ever Imagined!!!
Maple Grove - I gotta tell you what hit me, late Thursday afternoon after hours of really wrestling with this thing since 4 am that day… Here it is…
Here is something HUGE about our God that screams out from Chapter One of The Story…
In The Beginning God
In The Beginning GRACE!!!!
QUESTION…
How does our GREAT GOD respond to mankind
Ignoring, Abusing, Misusing, turning away from and spitting on HIS GOODNESS…
How does he respond to you and I…
By being GOODER… By dispensing His Amazing Grace… By giving them precisely what they don’t deserve.
WOW! Are you kidding me!
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. – Genesis 3:15
AND - how does God respond to the wickedness of Noah’s day? By saving Noah’s family and giving mankind a brand new start.
In the beginning GOD
In the beginning GRACE
Falling Plates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlx11BxF24
In the New Testament there is a reference back to Noah and the ark. First Peter chapter 3 it talks about how Noah and his family were actually saved by the flood waters, because the flood waters lifted the ark up and that’s how their lives were spared.
And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. – 1 Peter 3:21
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. – Acts 2:38
Who needs to be baptized today?
And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’
