So hey there, great to see you, and welcome to this safe place of rescue that we call DCC. We are pumped that you are here with us on this summer weekend. If you are a new friend here with us today for the very first time we want you to know that we know that you have lots of things to do with your time, we are honored to have you with us, and that regardless of how your story reads or what you believe you are in a safe place full of people just like you. We hope that you a great experience and want to come back real soon. As always, we want to say hey to all of our online friends old and new tuning in right now too. Good to have you with us. One last thing before we jump into this and kick off this new series. How about student takeover weekend last week? Wasn’t that amazing? I am stoked about what God is doing in, through, and with the next generation in this place. Hopefully after last week you have a real good feeling about the incredible team that we have leading them too.
ILLUST> So back when I was a kid growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, a vacation for our family of four was usually a short drive of an hour or two to some state park somewhere. Actually, that’s all I ever knew until one year when I was 10 or 11 years old, my mom decided that we needed to take my grandparents with us and make the 6 hour drive to her uncle’s horse farm down in Tennessee. We drove my grandmother’s 1973 Chevy Caprice. Any of you mature people remember that car? It looked like this only hers was blue. That thing was a tank. I think it could have handled 10 people comfortably. So we get to the farm and the next morning I want to ride a horse. I’m a boy, who wants to believe I’m a cowboy, and everybody knows that cowboy’s ride horses. So my great uncle tells my dad that he will go saddle some up for us. My dad insists, no all he needs to do is sit on a horse. I was so disappointed. So my dad takes me over and sits me on a bareback horse. It was so boring. I just sat there while my dad talked to my uncle. But then, I remembered what I had seen on tv. Horses run when you kick them in the sides. Why not? So, I did, and that horse took off flying full throttle through the field. I held around his neck as tight as I could trying not to fly off with my dad and uncle chasing behind and yelling at the top of their lungs for the horse to stop. All of a sudden I looked up and there was about a four foot fence straight ahead about 30 yards out. I remember thinking this is it, this is where I die. I was terrified. The fence was getting closer and closer and we weren’t veering off or slowing down. Then all of a sudden about 10 yards out the horse decided to throw on it’s brakes and start eating tall grass. Somehow I managed to stay onboard and proved my cowboy status. It was one of the scariest most awesome things I have ever done.
Here’s the thing. To this day, that is the only thing that I remember about that road trip. That’s how it usually works isn’t it? The most memorable things tend to happen not in the car on the road but at the stops we make along the way. That’s really important for us as we jump into this new series that we are calling Route 66. Route 66 was originally was a highway which became one of the most famous roads in the United States, that ran from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica California from 1926 until 1985. For many years it served as the primary route for those who were migrating west looking for a better life. Here’s why we are calling this series that. We believe the journey through the 66 books of the Bible to be the path to a better life too. Now, obviously, we can’t cover all 66 books in just 7 weeks but just like my trip to Tennessee as a kid, the most memorable parts of the story, will come from the 7 strategic stops we make along the way. 66 books that make up one large life-changing story, a story that a lot of us struggle to really know, comprehend, or understand. Let’s jump into this together and see if we can change that.
If you brought a Bible as you might guess we are going to be in Genesis chapter 1 today. If you don’t have a Bible they are back on the back tables that you can grab right now if you would like if you close or on you can always grab one on your way out. As always you can hit our app or the YouVersion app too. Or you can ignore all of that and read along with me on the screens. So here we go, Genesis chapter 1 verse 1…
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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.
Okay, so as we jump into this, the first thing that I think it is important that we remind ourselves of is this. This is not being written or recorded as it happens. That’s important. If you sit in a meeting with me and transcribe everything that is said and that happens you will end up with something far different than if I tell you about it later. It’s unfortunate, but that gets more and more true as I get older. Now I realize that it’s God not me that downloaded this to Moses or whoever wrote it. There is debate about that. But the point is the same. Here’s the question we have to ask. Is God actually trying to give an in depth minute by minute play by play here or is he painting a backdrop for us for everything else that is going to happen in the story? See, what we take away from the story has a lot to do with how we approach it? So how are we approaching it? If we really want to understand a story it is important that catch the start of the story. So here’s the question…
ARE WE STARTING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION? ILLUST> In th past few years I took a Torah class with my good friend Dr. Eric Smith. I remember thinking how cool it was going to be walk through Genesis with Eric. I was frustrated when I looked at the syllabus and discovered that we were not even going to get to Genesis 1:1, the Bible, the verse we just read until the 7th week. It reminded me once again of the importance of context in scripture. There is no question this is useful for us, the Bible tells us that all scripture is. But we cannot get past the fact that this was not written for just us. Question. Who was this first written for? It was written for God’s chosen people Israel who were living in an Ancient Near Eastern World. That’s why we spent the first 6 weeks of class studying other Ancient Near Eastern Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian texts written during the same time period. Now, I don’t want to bore you with that, but I do want to say this. The structure of this creation account from the very beginning is reflective of the ancient near eastern culture of that day and is absolutely brilliant. It would be sound familiar to anyone hearing it. That’s true from the very beginning of the story in Genesis 1. One of the common characteristics of all the creation accounts is they start with watery chaos just like we find with this darkness over the surface of the deep. There are actually many more similarities than that as we continue to walk through the creation story.
So, what’s the point? The point is that we can’t help ourselves. We bring our own lives, thinking, and our western approach to what we are reading. I don’t know about you but having grown up in church my experience has been this. We tend to approach Genesis 1 literally and try to defend it scientifically. Now, that is not entirely our fault. Culture tries to force us to. There is a general perception out there that the Christian faith is incompatible with science. That creates huge problems for us in the church. Our western culture continues to grow in it’s respect for science. As respect for science increases respect for Christianity decreases. I heard this past week that one of the major reasons that young people are walking away from church is the perception that being a Christian means you have to reject the findings of science. It is often the reason why people don’t give Jesus a hard look or serious consideration. That’s sad but true. We need to understand that we are not at war with science. If you think about it we ought to love science because science is studying God’s creation and his creation is good. God uses science to help us.
So, as we jump into this it’s important that we start with this. Genesis 1 was not written to be a guidebook for our apologetics arguments or as a part of a scientific textbook. It is not there to respond to or to try and satisfy our scientific curiosity. It is written in a way that will be familiar to the readers and hearers of that day in an attempt to answer their basic questions. Not scientific questions but questions like who are we, what are we created and called to do, who do we worship, and who do we trust? It answers those questions for us too. Keeping that perspective in place helps us get the story off to the right start. So as the story begins much like other creation accounts written in the Ancient Near East around that time there is darkness, formlessness, and emptiness that needs to be addressed. Let’s keep reading verse 3...
And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. 4 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. 6 And God said, ‘Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.’ 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault ‘sky’. And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day. 9 And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so... 11 Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.’ And it was so. 12 ...and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning – the third day. And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars... 18 ...and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning – the fourth day.
So let’s just hit the highlights here. God first addresses the darkness issue and separates the darkness from the light. That brings us to the end of day one. Then God addresses the formlessness by creating the sky above the water. That brings us to the end of day two. Then God continues to address the formlessness and maybe little emptiness too by pulling the land out of the water and putting trees and plants on it. That brings us to the end of day three. Then, watch this now, then God creates the Sun, Moon, and Stars too. Why? Hell tells us himself, to mark time, days, and years. So here’s a question. How do you have a day and night before you have the very things, sun and moon that create time and day and night? How does that work? See, how tends to be our most common question as we read through this. Before we try to answer that question, I think that we need to pause and ask this one...
ARE WE ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS? We read these verses and the questions that most tend to come to mind are how and how long? Let’s talk about that for a second. There are some indications that the “days” in Genesis 1 may not be literal days. The Hebrew word for day is (yom). It can be interpreted as a literal day, a season, an epic, or a block of time. The same word is interpreted season elsewhere in scripture. Here’s the point. God is trying to communicate what he did here and that he did it not how he did it or how long it took him to do it. He is not trying to be scientifically accurate here. How He did it which was so far beyond the possible comprehension of people at that time. Let’s be honest, we know a whole lot more today than people of that day did but there is still a part of this that’s way beyond our comprehension too. It is so easy for us to read this story with a bent toward trying to defend it or trying to prove the science behind it, to get caught up in how and how long and to miss the majesty and splendor of what is happening here and just how mind-blowing it really is.
ILLUST> Now, I’m no scientist. As my kids have grown up and needed help with science homework I have been pretty useless. There is a reason why I went to law school. Lots of reasons but we don’t have time for that. As I studied this week, I was reminded once again of how inconceivable this whole speaking the sun, moon, and stars into existence, day 4 alone, is for us. It’s different for us today than it would have been for someone back in the Ancient Near East when Genesis 1 was written. People back then thought the stars were gods up a mile or two in the sky. We know better today. Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Here’s what we know about those works today. Our sun is 864,340 miles in diameter. We could fit a million earths inside the sun. Let me show you an image. That gives us perspective. Our sun is nothing compared to other stars. Let me give you some more perspective. Here’s our sun compared to one star and that one compared to another. So light travels at 186,000 miles per second. For perspective, if nothing obstructs it the light out of the flashlight would circle the world 7 times in one second. The closest star to the earth is 4.2 lightyears away from us. A lightyear is 6 trillion miles. What that means is that if you and I were on a rocket traveling the typical 25,000 miles per hour it would take us 81,000 years to get to the nearest star. If you think of the universe as the earth it would take 2 million years to get from your couch to your television. Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies with billions of stars in each. There is an estimate that there are 100-200 trillion galaxies out there. As we great and unthinkable as our universe is, how much greater is the God who spoke it all into existence. The whole of our universe is like a bump on the end of his finger.
All of that to say this. What happens on “day 4” is kind of a big deal. Even if we don’t understand how He did it what God did ought to blow us away, humble us, and fill us with awe. I love how Tommy Nelson describes this in his book The Story of God. He says that when God looks at each piece of his creation and says it is good it’s because everything in creation was designed like a crib for this new baby coming on the scene soon who will be called man. We have had a couple of little warriors Bear and Bennett born to two mom’s on our staff team in the past year. It was the first child for both of them. As usual, they put a lot of attention into that nursery bedroom space for their little boys making it as safe, comfortable, enjoyable, and life giving as possible. See, I grew up thinking that we were an afterthought, that God got to the end and scratched his head saying something is still missing. The truth is he started creation with the end in mind, with us in mind. Then comes day 5 listen to this...
20 And God said, ‘Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.’ 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good... 23 And there was evening, and there was morning – the fifth day.
So God has addressed the darkness, and the formlessness, and now he takes care of the emptiness in the sky and sea with the birds and fish one last form to fill up verse 24...
24 And God said, ‘Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.’ And it was so. 25 ...and God saw that it was good. 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.’ 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 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.’ 29 Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.
All of a sudden things aren’t just good, they are very good. Something’s changed. Everything that you do to get that nursery ready for your child is good. When does it become very good? When that baby arrives, when you place that baby in that space that you carefully and intentionally created for them. Then on the 7th day God rested, blessed the 7th day and made it holy. So, my guess is that the creation account of Genesis leaves you with lots of questions. Yeah, me too. They are legitimate questions. The answers aren’t really clear. I think that God is okay with our questions and our trying to answer them. I also think that the main question that he really wants us taking away from Genesis chapter 1 is this...
DO WE REALIZE HOW IMPORTANT WE ARE TO GOD? One of the most incomprehensible, unfathomable, mysterious wonderful facts in all of history is that despite all I’ve done in my life this all powerful creator God cares about me. I think that one of the biggest challenges that we face as we try to follow Jesus and chase after the life that he came to bring us is really embracing how much God loves each one of us. The fact that He loves each one of us so much that he was willing to give his own life, the life of his only son for us. That is the ultimate wonder of all of the wonders of the world.
This story is similar to other creation accounts in that day...watery chaos, a creator deity, the power of spoken words. The structure is the same, the poetic qualities are the same, but who we are in the story...it’s not even close. When humanity hits the scene the Bible takes a hard turn and actually mocks other Ancient Near Eastern literature of it’s time. In the ancient near east people are slaves. In the Bible good goes to very good when we are created. We are made in the image of God. It denotes inherit royalty and value. We, male and female bear God’s image. We are all sons and daughters, kings and queens, created not to be slaves, but because what this huge creator God desires more than anything else on earth is to have a deep love relationship with us. That’s the beauty of the beginning of the story, a story that is getting ready to take a very violent and hard turn for the worse. But, that’s next week.
Ultimately, we are going to see God’s heart for rescue the rest of the way on this journey down Route 66, a rescue that ultimately culminates in something that we pause to remember here at DCC every single week. Every week we carve out time to be still, be silent, and just take a moment to reflect on how important we are to God, how much he loves us, the fact that he created the very hill that he knew he was going to send his son to die on for us. We want to take a few minutes to do that before we leave here today. So, here’s what we are going to do. I’ve asked the band to come back out and we are going to close with one last song. Before we do that I’m going to pray and then we are going to pass some trays down the aisles with a little piece of bread and cup of juice representing that moment when Jesus allowed his body to be broken and poured out his blood to rescue all of us. As it is being passed Joseph is going to sing a part of a song. Feel free to sing along if you want or maybe just soak in the words. If you are a believer in Jesus you take it whenever you are ready during the instrumental music that follows. If you aren’t a believer in Jesus, aren’t sure, if this feels like pressure or confusing or weird, or maybe you do believe but your heart’s not in good space just pass it on. There’s no shame in that. After we take it you are going to hear those little cups crack around the room. A lot of us do that to remember those words Jesus said on the cross...it is finished. All of our sin, yesterday’s, today’s, tomorrow’s all gone because of the blood of Jesus. Then we are going to stand up and rock out one last song.
God cannot be put in the same category with anything else on the planet. We see his heart every step of the way as we walk through the story. In everything He’s made, in everything He says, in everything He’s done. Nothing we have ever done or can or will ever do will ever separate us from his love. Yes, He is beyond our ability to comprehend and understand, but this part of story is crystal clear, He never stops pursuing us. Let me pray for us.
