Foundations of Our Faith: The Story of Genesis
10/05/2003 - The Story of Creation, the Cosmos
Last Sunday, Jennifer gave me one of the best birthday presents ever, five tickets to the final Phillies game at beautiful Veteran's Stadium. What a gal! She actually bought the tickets last January, the day they went on sale. And it was a good thing because they sold out in one day.
So we went down as a family and watched a very boring game. The Phillies lost 5-2 to the Braves, but the best part was the closing ceremony that followed. For almost two hours players from all 33 seasons paraded onto the field in a final tribute to a stadium that housed so many memories, mostly bad ones. It was a very emotional experience as they went all the way back to the beginning and that very first game on April 10, 1971.
Back to the beginning. A few weeks ago we went back to the beginning of Valley View, revisiting our church's story that started ten years ago. And this fall we're going back to the beginning, back to the beginning of time as we know it, in a brand new series I've entitled Foundations of Our Faith. And the reason we're going back to the beginning is so that we can move forward in our lives with a greater sense of mission and purpose and faith.
Over the next three months we're going to work our way through the book of Genesis, the very first book of the Bible. And we're going to break it down into nine stories starting today with the story of creation.
The Story of Creation, the Cosmos,1:1-2:3
The Story of Creation, Humankind, 2:4-25
The Story of Adam and Eve, 3:1-24
The Story of Noah,6-9
The Story of Abraham & the Land, 12-14, 19
The Story of Abraham & Isaac,15-22
The Story of Jacob,25-33
The Story of Joseph the Dreamer,37-40
The Story of Joseph the Ruler,41-50
We're going to cover a lot of ground in this adventure, so it will really help if you can read along as we go. You might want to use this outline of Genesis as a guide for your own personal Bible study this fall. I guarantee you that it will help your roots grow deeper into the soil of faith so that you can move ahead in your life with a greater understanding of who God is, who you are, and what on earth you're doing here. It will give you a stronger foundation for life. I guarantee it. And if it doesn't I'll make sure you get a full money back refund for the series, no questions asked!
The goal of this series is the same as the goal of every series, to make you a better lover of God and each other. It's also to convince you that these stories are real. They happened. They're not legends or myths as I was taught in college, but historical events that address the deepest longings of our soul. If you've never thought about them that way, I want to encourage you to come each week with an open mind and allow the Spirit of God to speak to you. And before I go any further I want to publicly thank Tom Holladay, a teaching pastor at Saddleback Community Church in southern California, for helping me organize a large amount of material for this series.
We're not going to be able to go verse by verse through Genesis, we'll save that for heaven when we have more time. Normally that's how we study a book around here, particularly shorter, New Testament books. And there's great value in that. But there is also great value in stepping back and getting an overview.
Sometimes we can get too close to something and fail to see the big picture. Did you ever get too close to the TV screen and discovered that all you could see is the tiny little dots. You have to move away from the TV set to see the big picture, don't you? So that's what we're going to do with the book of Genesis. Not so much look at the dots, as at the big picture.
The story of Genesis is really very simple. It starts with the creation of the cosmos, that's about 2% of the book, and then the rest of it is about God's relationship with people: Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. God is into people and that's how he put the book together. It's a story of what God did in these people's lives, normal people like you and me, people who believed and doubted, loved and hated, won and lost, did great things and did horrible things, people we can relate to. It's story about us really and how God wants to work in your life and my life today.
The word "Genesis" is the Greek word for beginning, the very first word of the Bible. Most scholars agree that the book was written by a man named Moses as part of a larger work called the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Moses wasn't alive in the beginning, he wasn't in the garden of Eden, he wasn't an eyewitness to any of these events, but God chose to reveal to him what happened on day one and day two and day three, what happened with Adam and Eve and Noah and the others in the story.
As a frame of reference, Moses lived about 1,500 years before Jesus. That's about 3,500 hundred years ago. He's not mentioned in the book of Genesis. His story begins in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible.
Moses wrote these things down during the time of the Exodus from Egypt when Israel was emerging from 400 years of slavery and being born as a nation. Moses wanted his people to know where they came from, who they were, and where they were going. It was his chance to take them back to the oak tree, as we did a few weeks ago, and reveal to them their roots in God their creator.
Right now, some of you are in the very same spot that God's people were when Moses wrote this book. You are just now emerging from years of bondage and you're starting to discover your new found freedom in Christ. The spiritual side of you has been awakened and you're coming alive for the very first time. I know the feeling and it's wonderful. And now God wants you to know who he is, and who you are, and what his purpose is for your life.
So let's get started. If you have a Bible turn with me to Genesis 1:1. The very first sentence of God's story reads like this, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Ten words in English. Seven words in the original Hebrew. One sentence that answers three of the most fundamental questions anyone can have. Where did it all come from? When did it all start? And who's behind it all?
Right out of the shoot, God wants us to have clarity on these three seminal questions. And if you can settle this in your mind right here, right now, you're well on your way to living a life of meaning and purpose. But if you get it wrong, you may well be on your way to making a complete mess out of your life.
In his introduction to Genesis in The Message translation of the Bible, Eugene Peterson writes, "First, God. God is the subject of life. God is the foundation for living. If we don't have a sense of the primacy of God, we will never get it right, get life right, get our lives right. Not God at the margins. Not God as an option. Not God on the weekends. God at the center and circumference. God first and last. God. God. God."
The stakes are really high in Genesis 1:1. And if you're not going to buy into the truth of these ten words, then you better make pretty darn sure that you have really good evidence for whatever it is you do buy into. If Genesis 1:1 was a battlefield it would be covered with monuments and graves erected on this one verse. This is where the controversy begins. Is there a God or isn't there a God? Was the world created or did it just explode into existence?
When Moses penned this verse, he wanted everyone to know that there is a God who personally created everything that we see and can't see in the heavens and the earth. The word for "created" is the Hebrew word bara and it means created out of nothing, the visible from the invisible. The word is used throughout the Bible, but only with God as the subject. Bara, the creation of something out of nothing, is only something that only God can do.
Hebrews 11:2 makes it clear that the truth of Genesis 1:1 must be accepted by faith. 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. Creation is a wonderful proof of the existence of God, but how that creation was accomplished is something we accept by faith.
I love to illustrate God's creation with a ball. If you see a ball sitting on the floor what is one thing you have to assume? Someone put it there. Right? A ball just doesn't appear out of thin air. Let's make that ball bigger, as big as this building. It doesn't change the logic does it? Someone had to put it there. Let's make the ball as big as the earth. That still doesn't change the assumption does it? Somebody put it there. Let's make it as big as an ever expanding universe. That still doesn't change the fact that someone had to put it there. And Genesis 1:1 tells us who that someone is.
English author and Oxford professor John Ruskin put it this way when he said, "Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort!" That's another way of saying in the beginning God.
King David put it this way in Psalm 19:1, The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. That's another way of saying in the beginning God.
It's interesting that over the years the more science has developed the theory of evolution, the closer it's gotten to the Bible's description of creation. The Big Bang theory has the universe exploding into existence all of a sudden, all at once. Which is what Genesis 1 teaches. Only the agent wasn't random energy, it was the Word of the living God.
One of my favorite creation quotes comes from the well-respected, self-proclaimed agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow, who founded NASA's famous Goddard Institute. After spending his lifetime studying the universe he wrote in his book God and the Astronomers , "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance. He is about to conquer the highest peak. As he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."
The explanation for the origin of the universe will never be found in science. There were no eyewitnesses and the evidence was burned up in the heat and the pressure of that first cosmic explosion. Only Genesis 1:1 tells who caused that initial explosion. It was God. And because it was God we as human beings have a sense of dignity and destiny that is only fully realized when we enter into a personal relationship with him. Do you have that? Do you know this God personally? You can.
The first page of any book tells you what the rest of the book is going to be about. If you read, "add three cups flour," you know it's a cookbook. If you read "2x + 3y + z = 851?" you know it's a math book. If you read "once upon a time," you know it's a storybook.
If you read In the beginning God, you know it's a God book, with God as the foundation for the universe and as the foundation for your life and for mine. He's a personal creator who personally made the heavens and the earth, who personally made you and me and has a personal plan for our lives. God created everything I see. God created me. And that's the core truth and purpose of the book of Genesis.
Now let's take a look at some other things in the creation story and see what we can learn about this God. Look at how each day of creation begins. Day one, Genesis 1:3, God said. Day two, Genesis 1:6, God said. Day three, Genesis 1:9, God said. Day four, Genesis 1:14, God said. Day five, Genesis 1:20, God said. Day six, Genesis 1:24, God said.
This God who created the heavens and the earth talks. He speaks. He communicates. He is there and he is not silent. Not then and not now. One of the most striking things in Genesis 1 is the way each day starts. God speaks and it happens. Everything created out of nothing by the Word of God. Light, water, sky, land, sun, moon, stars, birds, fish, animals, man. God's Word starts each day.
Which reminds me of John 1:1, the Genesis of the New Testament, where we read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning .... And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
Who is the Word? Jesus Christ. Who was there at the beginning? God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who verse two says was hovering over the waters. This God who speaks is a God who lives in community. This is a God who exists in relationship and communicates with his creation. This is a God who longs to be in community with you and with me and loves to communicate with us through his Word the Bible, through his Son Jesus, and through his Spirit who lives inside his followers.
We're not the product of some random, cosmic explosion. We are the product of a personal God. At the center of the universe is this love filled, happy home where God lives in perfect harmony and community with himself. No arguments. No conflict. No disagreements. Just love. It's the loving home we've always longed to be a part of.
And God creates us not because he needed someone to love. He experiences perfect love within himself. Instead, he creates us so that one day we could be part of his family and live in his home and enjoy him forever. That's the God story.
God's word began each day and God's joy ended each day. The God who speaks is a God who rejoices. At the end of each day God takes a minute to reflect and says, "it was good." And at the end of the week he said in Genesis 1:31, it was very good.
Wouldn't it be great to go to bed every night saying, "Wow! It was a good day." Instead of thinking of all the ways we blew it and all the things we hoped to get done, but didn't. Before God went to bed each night he said, "it was good."
When God looks at his creation he says "good." Which tells me something about the moral character of God. He is a good God and everything he made is good. The apostle Paul puts it this way in 1 Timothy 4:4, Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
When I believe that everything God created is good, it impacts the way I relate to God's creation. It makes me want to treat the environment and animals and people with respect and dignity. God don't make no junk. You are a good thing that God created, treat yourself that way and you'll bring glory to him. God speaks. God rejoices. God is good. And God rests.
Look at Genesis 2:1-3, Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and make it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
It's interesting that God took six days to accomplish his work, when he could have done it all in a heartbeat. He could have said, "Let there be everything!" But he didn't. He decided to do one thing at a time, which tells me that God is a God of order. He had a plan for creation just like he has a plan for your life and for my life. Often our lives may feel formless and void, but God is hovering over them. Our lives aren't some random collection of unrelated circumstances. They are the result of a loving God who has a book on each one of us.
Psalm 139:16 says, All the days planned for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
So at the end of the day God rested. Why? Was he tired? No. God doesn't get tired. The Bible tells us he rested for three reasons. First, he was finished. The universe isn't some vast unfinished symphony. God was done with it. In fact, God always finishes what he starts. He won't bail out on you or me, even when we bail out on him.
Second, he rested to set us an example. We all need time for rest and reflection. We were built that way. Later on in Exodus, Moses would record the fourth commandment, Remember the Sabbath day and keep it separate. One day a week God wants us to rest and reflect and refuel or else we'll breakdown. For many of us that day is today.
And third, God rested to give us a picture of the future. One day all those who know Jesus Christ will enjoy an eternity of rest and refreshment in the presence of God. We'll live in that happy home forever. We will enjoy our ultimate Sabbath rest.
I've called this series Foundations of our Faith. And the foundation of our faith is God, a personal God who lives in community with himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. A God who creates. A God who speaks. A God who loves. A God who is good. A God who finishes what he starts. A God who knows how to rejoice and how to rest. And who calls us to find our rest in him. Have you found it? Do you know him?
Jesus concluded his most famous teaching by telling us that there are just two ways to live our lives, just two. We can either build them on sand or we can build them on rock. And no matter how wonderfully we build, if we build on sand they will all eventually come crashing down like a house of cards. But if we build them on rock, they will endure forever. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . That's the rock to build on.