“GREAT BIG GOD”
GENESIS 1:1
We are packed and ready to go on a road trip, but the trip is not about us. It is the Journey of Jesus through the 66 books of the Bible. Jesus traveled Route 66. Although we do not see His name in every book, all 66 books point to Him.
Jeff Medders summarizes it this way in his book, Gospel Formed.
• Genesis to Deuteronomy is the foundation for Jesus.
• Joshua to Esther is the preparation for Jesus.
• Job to Song of Solomon is the longing for Jesus.
• Isaiah to Malachi is the expectation of Jesus.
• Matthew to John is the life and ministry of Jesus.
• Acts is the continued work and spreading of the fame of Jesus, and the growth of His church.
• Romans to Jude is about living for Jesus.
• Revelation is about the return, reign, and rule of Jesus.
This morning, we see Jesus in Genesis as the Word of God creating the heavens and the earth. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) John, connects Jesus with Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made." (John 1:1-3) Our God is a Great Big God!
On Christmas Eve in 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 circled the dark side of the moon and headed toward home. As their tiny capsule raced through space, they saw the glistening blue and white hues of earth fill their window. In that majestic moment they were struck with awe and wonder.
They did not quote Einstein, Shakespeare, or Darwin. Taking turns, the three men reverently recited Genesis 1:1-10 word for word from a Bible supplied by the Gideon’s. Billions of people around the world heard the Word of God echoing from outer space. VIDEO
This image was eventually turned into a postage stamp with the words, “In the beginning, God…” at the bottom. The chances of us having a stamp with a Bible verse on it today are about the same as seeing a 6-cent stamp again.
The wonder of creation should forever change the way we see the Creator. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The first sentence of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible is simple and straightforward, yet complex and compelling. Genesis has a big beginning because God is a big God.
This is the most important verse in the Bible. If Genesis 1:1 is not true, then the whole Bible is suspect. If you cannot trust what is written in these ten words, how can you trust the rest of Scripture? If you do not believe it, then you cannot believe anything else in the Bible. If you believe it, then you can believe everything else the Bible teaches.
GOD IS ETERNAL
In the beginning, God. As Creator, God existed before His creation. Everything else in the universe has a beginning. God alone has always been, always is, and always will be. He made time, yet He is before time because He is timeless.
The eternity of God refers to His existence backward throughout time and beyond, further than we can imagine, and forward into the future, as far as we can imagine and beyond. God never had a beginning and will never have an ending. There never was a time when He was not, and there will never be a time when He ceases to be.
I cannot fully comprehend the eternity of God. A God who is small enough to be understood is not big enough to be worshiped. If we have a God we can grasp, then He ceases to be God. Our great big God is eternal. He is everlasting. His love will never end. His mercy will never cease. His truth will never expire.
God is the central subject of the first sentence in the Bible and is referred to by name 31 times in the 31 verses of Genesis 1. When your life is centered around Him, you will discover the God who is eternal has a never-ending love which will permeate your life.
GOD CREATED EVERYTHING
God created the heavens and the earth. The word created means “to form out of nothing”. God took a bunch of nothing, a handful or zilch, a truckload of zero, and made the universe and everything in it.
God was once approached by a scientist who said, “Listen God, we have decided we do not need you anymore. These days we can clone people, transplant organs, and do all sorts of things that used to be considered miraculous.”
God replied, “Let’s have a competition to see who can make a human being.” The scientist agrees, so God declares they should do it like he did in the good old days when he created Adam.
“Agreed,” says the scientist as he bends down to scoop up a handful of dirt.” “Hold on.” God says. “Get your own dirt.” Out of nothing, God created.
Consider the enormity of the universe. If you could travel at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) it would take you 8 minutes to get from the earth to the sun. To go from the sun to the center of the Milky Way would take about 33,000 years. The Milky Way belongs to a group of some 20 galaxies known as the Local Group. To cross the Local Group, you would have to travel at the speed of light for 2 million years. The Local Group belongs to the Virgo Cluster which would take you 500 million light years to cross. To cross the entire known universe would take you about 20 billion light years.
Just as amazing is His grand design of the human body. We have 75 trillion cells of some 200 different types of cells in our body. Our DNA, fingerprints, and looks are all different from one another. On an average day, you: move 750 major muscles, breathe 23,040 times, speak 25,000-30,000 words, exercise 7,000,000 brain cells, blood travels 168,000,000 miles, and your heart beats 103,689 times.
As God’s creation, we belong to Him. He owns the rights to our lives. It is not “my body, my choice”. Your body is God’s. He made it. If God created you, then your gender is designed and assigned by the Creator. It is not a personal preference. To reject it is to reject His purpose for your life.
If God created you, then you are not insignificant, no matter how much people or circumstances might try to make you feel so. David, knowing, God made him, wrote: "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well." (Psalm 139:14) You are wonderful because God made you.
If God created you, then your life, and every life, has meaning and purpose. Since God created the universe from nothing, He can take my weakness, my failure, my emptiness, all the nothing I have to offer God, and make it into something completely wonderful which will glorify Him.
In 1971, Astronaut James Irwin was the eighth person to walk on the moon. He described how this experience changed his life: “I felt the power of God as I’d never felt it before.” This transformed him from being a nominal Christian to a sold-out follower of Christ. So impacted by this encounter with God, he resigned from NASA within a year, and for 20 years went around the world preaching the gospel.
Irwin was quoted as saying, “God decided that He would send His Son Jesus Christ to the blue planet, and it’s through faith in Jesus Christ that we can relate to God. As I travel around, I tell people the answer is Jesus Christ; that Jesus walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon.”
The eternal God who exists and who created has made it possible for each of us to know Him personally. While we can see and understand things about Him through His creation, we can only know Him personally through a faith relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ.
God created us in His image and likeness, according to Genesis 1:27 so we could have an intimate, personal relationship with Him. How would you describe your relationship to the eternal Creator?
