Genesis 1:1-5
“From Chaos To Redemption”
By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
The first 5 verses of the Bible inform us that God brought Creation out of chaos.
And chaos is a word that we--as Americans--understand in a way that we never have understood it before.
In the past few years we have discovered what real chaos is.
In horror we have witnessed the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the chaos that
followed.
We know what this present darkness can do to teenagers as we’ve witnessed the images of the school
shootings in Paducah and Columbine.
September 11, 2001, is a date that, to use the words of Franklin Roosevelt, will “live in infamy.”
The pictures of airplanes deliberately crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will be
etched upon our psyche’s forever.
And when someone speaks of anthrax, small pox, e. coli, and nuclear warheads....
....immediately the picture is of the chaos that bio-terrorism and war might bring.
But our God is a God Who brings meaning and order out of chaos!
The essence of creation confirms this!
“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...”
The earth was without form, it was unshaped, undeveloped, and unfinished...
These are tough words, words of chaos, and hopelessness.
But maybe that’s the point.
All of us, at some time or another have found something about our lives that can be described with words like
formless, empty, and dark.
And as we go into the world, we come face to face with other people who feel as if these are the words
that describe their lives as well.
They feel as if there is no hope…that everything is formless and empty, and that darkness covers
everything.
Have you ever felt as if everything was out of order in your life…
…like nothing was fitting together properly as it should?
Many of us say things like: “Nothing ever works out right,” or “my personal life’s a mess,” or “my
career is in shambles”….
… “this is not how I planned life to be.”
There is only one way to have our lives move from the chaotic to the state where there is real peace and
real order.
We need God’s creative power!
We must put our lives in His hands, and let Him direct us.
God has a plan for all of us.
A perfect plan.
And yet so many of us are chasing our tails….
…our family lives may be dysfunctional…
…our finances may be a mess…
…we may have relationship problems…
…our lives may be constantly in upheaval.
Why?
Because too many of us are trying to live life according to our own wisdom to achieve our own desires.
And when we’re calling the shots…God isn’t!
When we’re calling the shots, we are devoid of God’s creative power.
But the good news is that there is no chaos that is too great for God to be able to turn into order.
The Bible tells us that Abraham believed this.
God “gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.”
And because Abraham believed this, he became the father of many nations!
Nothing is impossible with God.
Many people complain about the meaninglessness of life.
Some people get to the point where they are ready to give up on life—not necessarily because of the
hardships they are facing—but because of their boredom, the monotony, the lack of purpose.
And this is what King Solomon felt whenever he looked at life on earth without reference to God.
In the book of Ecclesiates he cries: “Meaningless! Meaningless!….Everything is meaningless.”
In other words, it’s all in vain—life is just the passing of time.
And without God, this is true. We exist, but nothing more.
Only God can turn empty years into full seasons!
I love living in Virginia where we can enjoy 4 seasons.
A few months ago it was Autumn, and we saw all those beautiful colors as the leaves started falling from
the trees.
Now winter has come.
We have crisp mornings, cold rains…and sometimes snow and wind.
This gets us truly ready for spring—when the warmth starts to return and everything seems to brighten.
And finally, we have summer…
…hot days, balmy nights, crickets and bbq’s.
Aren’t the seasons wonderful?
Each of them have their own peculiar beauty.
I love the seasons, and God created them.
He hung the stellar bodies in place, and He marked out the seasons.
Only God can make the days and weeks flow together in rhythm.
Only God can put meaning and purpose into life.
As Christians we still experience difficult seasons…
…trials and hardships. There is winter as well as spring.
But God causes even those times to have purpose.
We soon learn that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose.”
As we look back on tough times and see what God has done in our lives through them…
…well, it’s amazing, but we’re even glad that we went through them!
Yes, “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the deep…”
But you know what?
… “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”
What an incredible gift…
…to know, that when we need God the most, God is right there, waiting for us to turn to Him, waiting to create
life in an otherwise empty world.
When we get to the point in our lives, when it seems as if everywhere we look, there is nothing but
darkness…right there on the edge…we will find God!
God is always there…
…waiting and watching…
…wanting to create something extra-ordinary in our lives!
And you know what?
If we are willing to let Him, this is exactly what He does.
The Bible tells us that anyone who comes to Christ Jesus is a new creation: “the old is gone, the new has
come!”
On the first day, God gave the earth light…
…not the sun and moon kind of light, but a Divine Light.
That’s right, God brought Light to the earth 3 days before He made the sun and the moon and the stars!
And that’s the first thing God does when He begins working in our lives—He fills us with His divine
Light!
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”
And John chapter 1 tells us that “in him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
So, when we turn to God we find the light of Jesus Christ.
We discover a hope and a promise and a future!
We discover, much to our amazement, that God has been there all along, and now, as we trust Him, He is
going to do great things in our lives!
Some of us have loved ones who’ve heard the gospel countless times, but they’re still away from God.
The fact is, we can put the truth right under their noses but they can’t see it because of the darkness.
What they need is an infusion of God’s light so that they can see the truth.
Let’s continue to witness to them through our lives, and let’s cry out to God until He shines His light into
their lives and they see and accept the truth of God for themselves.
The ninth plague that Moses brought upon the land of Egypt, because Pharaoh wouldn’t let God’s people
go, was the plague of darkness.
Exodus chapter 10 tells us that the darkness was so thick that it could be “felt”…
…it was so intense that no Egyptian moved from their bed for 3 days.
But while the Egyptians were in darkness, just down the road the Israelite slaves had light in their
dwellings.
Yeah, there may be darkness all around—but wherever God commands the light to shine, it shines!
There are still dark moments in my life. There are many times that I am confused, and can’t see which
road to take.
But when I seek the Lord, His light comes flooding through.
When we read the Bible, meditate on God’s Word, and ask for guidance through prayer God turns
darkness into light.
And as he does this, He begins to point out the things in our lives that threaten to destroy us.
As the light of God begins to shine in our lives, it reveals our sin…the sin that Christ died for.
Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Life is not measured by the accumulation of things.
It’s not measured in days or years.
Full life, abundant life is measured by our character, by our love—it is measured by our relationship
with God.
When God created humankind—Adam and Eve—He created them to have fellowship with Him.
And when God gives us New Life—it is again to have that intimate fellowship with God.
If we want to know what it really means to have “life”…
…not empty life, not formless life, not life that is filled with darkness…but real “life”…
…life that is filled with real peace, real joy, real love…
…we must come to Jesus Christ!
Only the God Who created the world can create real life in us!
God wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him.
That’s the reason Jesus died on the cross…
…so that we could receive eternal life through Him and be adopted into God’s family.
And God desires that intimate relationship with everyone of us.
We have been created in God’s image so that we can have fellowship with God…and have meaningful
lives.
… God wants us to be fruitful.
Jesus said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a person remains in me and I in them, then he or she
will bear much fruit, apart from me you can do nothing.”
Isn’t that what is wrong with much of the world today?
So many lives are formless, empty, and dark.
Chaos abounds!
But in Jesus Christ we have form, we have purpose, we have meaning, we have light…we have
redemption!
Formlessness, emptiness, darkness…yeah there is a lot of that around.
But when the God of Creation looks at us He sees what we can become!
Unlike the nursery story of Humpty Dumpty who could not be put together again and was left in
pieces…we can be formed and filled anew!
God can take all the broken pieces, all the broken dreams, all the broken-up lives and re-create them
into something…something…
…well as the hymn says:
“Something beautiful,
something good,
All my confusion Christ understood.
All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife,
But He made something beautiful of my life.”
