The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is God Himself! Series

Intro: WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT GOD HIMSELF!

1. In Boca Raton Florida, Jerry Stevens, a pilot, decided to greet the New Year by writing, "God is Great" and similar messages in the sky above the city. When they saw the skywriting; many residents panicked and called police.

They believed Steven’s airplane might be part of a terrorist plot.

2. It tells alot about our Nation - we have no fear of God, who is great; but

we stand in fear of terrorists, of mere men. If we would fear God, we

would soon lose our fear of man.

3. Name and Nature of God.

Trans: Gen. 1:1

"In the beginning" marks a starting point of a specific duration, as "in the beginning of the year" which anticipates an "end" as well.

"11 "But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning even to the end of the year." Deuteronomy 11:11-12

Job 8:7; 42:12; Eccl 7:8; Isa 46:10...

The earth not only has a commencement, but one with a view to a consummation. Just as surely as the earth has a specific beginning it will have a specific end. That consummation will involve a new heavens and earth.

"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind." Isaiah 65:17

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea." Revelation 21:1

This is why we should live life with that consummation in mind...life is not just aimless but has a purpose, an end - it is going somewhere. And it all centers on God.

Tozer, "One of the greatest tragedies that we find, even in this most enlightened of all ages, is the utter failure of millions of men and women ever to discover why they were born....

Those who have followed the revelation provided by the Creator God have accepted that God never does anything without a purpose. We do believe, therefore, that God had a noble purpose in mind when He created us.

We believe that it was distinctly the will of God that men and women created in His image would desire fellowship with Him above all else.

In His plan, it was to be a perfect fellowship based on adoring worship of the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

If you are acquainted with the Shorter Catechism, you know that it asks an age-old, searching question: "What is the chief end of man?"

The simple yet profound answer provided by the Catechism is based upon the revelation and wisdom of the Word of God: "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."...

Yes, worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we are born again from above. That is why we were created and that is why we have been recreated. That is why there was a genesis at the beginning, and that is why there is a re-genesis, called regeneration.

That is also why there is a church. The Christian church exists to worship God first of all. Everything else must come second or third or fourth or fifth....

Sad, sad indeed, are the cries of so many today who have never discovered why they were born. It brings to mind the poet Milton’s description of the pathetic lostness and loneliness of our first parents. Driven from the garden, he says, "they took hand in hand and through the valley made their solitary way."

I. FIRST, THE SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD.

A. Last week we looked at God’s Nature…Self-existent.

Boice, "First, when Genesis begins with the words "In the beginning God," it is telling us that God is self-existent. This is not true of anything else. Everything else depends on some other thing or person and ultimately on God...

God is the ultimate cause and is Himself uncaused. God has no origins; this means: first, that as he is in himself he is unknowable, and second, that he is answerable to no one.

Why should God’s self-existence mean he is unknowable? If God is the cause beyond everything, then he cannot be explained or known as other objects can...This is one reason why philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God.

These disciplines are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The scientist will admit that there is much he or she does not know. But it is quite another thing to admit that there is something that we can never know and which, in fact, we do not even have a technique for discovering.