Creation - Genesis 1:1-2:3 Argyle - 1/3/16-52 Key Bible Stories. Introduction to Scripture

Transcription

1 1 Creation - Genesis 1:1-2:3 Argyle - 1/3/16-52 Key Bible Stories Introduction to Scripture Several years after moving here from Pennsylvania, I had the chance to see Argyle from a whole new perspective. Paul McGeoch gave me an aerial tour of Argyle in his small airplane. Paul had an airstrip right on his dairy farm and kept the plan in one of his barns. Although I was pretty familiar with the roads of Argyle by then, it was a whole different view from a few hundred feet up in the air. This year in our preaching we are going to do an overview of the Bible. Using a Bible study called 52 Key Bible Stories (picture) as our outline, we are going to look at key Bible passages from Genesis to Revelation. One of the fun things Paul and I did on our flight that morning was a touch and go landing at the Argyle Airport north of the Village. We literally touched down for a few seconds and then took back off. That s what we ll be doing in this sermon series. Each week we will touch down briefly on one of the 52 key stories in this study. Although we will do sections of the Bible chronologically, there will be some weeks out of order to accommodate the seasons of Lent and Advent and the preferences of guest preachers. Next week, for instance, Rob Antonucci will be jumping ahead to preach about God s vision for mission in Genesis 12. In the following weeks we ll come back to Genesis 2 and 3.

2 2 The sermon passage for the week will be listed in the bulletin and on the website so you can prepare for worship each week. That will especially be helpful for the weeks where we will be covering whole chapters or more. If you would like to have a copy of the 52 Key Bible Stories study as a resource, they should be available next week. Today we swoop down on Genesis 1, the story of creation. We read part of that in our responsive reading. We are going to pick up the story of creation on day 6 with the high point of creation, the creation of human beings. (Read) (Pray) Introduction All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned... Robert Fulghum goes on in his 1990 best seller (picture) to list some of those things he learned in kindergarten. Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess....wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.... Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam

3 3 cup - they all die. So do we....everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. We may learn a lot of helpful things in kindergarten, but I want to make the case that all, or at least almost all we really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, we learn in Genesis 1-3. It is hard to overestimate the importance of these three chapters for our lives. In them we learn about who God is, who we are and what went wrong with our world. In them we learn about worship, marriage and work. Even our views on contemporary topics like abortion, homosexuality and care for the environment flow out of our understanding of Genesis 1-3. We won t have time to go into all of these things in these touch and go landings we ll be doing in these passages, but I will try to hit the highlights. In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth The highlight of all highlights in Genesis 1 is, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Sometimes in our discussions of Genesis 1 we get so caught up in the debate as to how God created the heavens and the earth, that we miss the more important point which is that God did create the heavens and the earth. God is the Creator. The world didn t happen by chance. It has a Creator and he is the God we read about in Scripture.

4 4 In making this point, Genesis 1 lays out this 7 day structure that we are so familiar with. What is God trying to teach us with this structure? There are three basic approaches that evangelical Christians take to understanding this 7 day structure. By evangelical Christian I mean folks like us who believe among other things that the Bible is God s word to be studied and followed. The most familiar understanding of the 7 days is that the days refer to seven, 24 hour days. Thus, God created the world in a literal, 7 day week. None of us dispute that God could certainly do this, but is this what Genesis 1 is really saying? The second group are folks who understand the days of creation as referring to periods of time like an age of several hundred years. Included in this day/age group are some people who believe in the theory of evolution as a process that God used in creating the world. Most evolutionists would not be included in this group since they don t acknowledge a Creator, but there are a few Christian evolutionists. They believe that God created the world and the days of creation refer to long periods of time. A third group in the creationist camp are folks who believe the days of Genesis 1 are just a literary device that has nothing to do with time. They point out that there is a very interesting structure in this narrative where on Days 1, 2 and 3 there is the creation of area and on Days 4, 5 and 6 there is the creation of inhabitants for those areas. So, on Day 1 light is created and on Day 4 the sun,

5 5 moon and stars were created to inhabit the light. On Day 2 the water and the sky are separated and Day 5 fish and birds are created to inhabit the water and the sky. On Day 3 land appears and Day 6 animals inhabit the land. Such a structure may indicate that Genesis 1 is telling us less about how the world was created and more about why it was created. All three of these groups are creationists because we all believe that God created the heavens and the earth, however he did it. If you are interested in pursuing the meaning of the 7 days further, I have some excellent books I could lend you. But, please don t miss the most important point of this creation narrative and that is, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That tells us some important things about God. It tells us that God is eternal - he existed before the creation of the world. It tell us that God is unique - he is not a part of creation, but separate from it. It tells us that God is powerful - able to create this amazing world that we live in. It tells us that God is creative - able to make an elephant, a rose, a mountain and you. It tells us that God is to be worshipped. The psalmist wrote, Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded and it stood firm. (Psalm 33:8 & 9) Another psalmist wrote, Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. (Psalm 95:6)

6 6 As we live in and experience the creation around us, Genesis 1 helps us to understand where this world came from and most importantly, who is behind it. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. We Are Created in God s Image The other important truth I want to highlight from Genesis 1 is that we are created in God s image. The late chaplain of the United States Senate, Richard Halverson wrote, What is man? Naturalism says he is the product of a long evolutionary process, merely the most highly evolved of the apes. Marxism says he has value only as he produces. Secularism says he is important only as he achieves. Materialism says he is worth what he possesses. The Bible gives a very different answer to the question, What is man? Genesis 1:27 says, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. You and I are created in the image of God. Our worth and dignity come not from anything we do or accomplish, but from whose image we bear. From the point of our conception our last breath, we are if inestimable worth. In the words of that old MasterCard commercial, we are priceless. We are priceless because we are created in the image of God. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? It means, first of all, that our existence is derived. An image is not the original, nor is it anything without the original. We are radically dependent on God not only for the air we

7 7 breathe and the food we eat, but for meaning and purpose in life. To be created in the image of God, also, means that we are like God in some ways. An image is made according to the original. The Lincoln Monument in Washington, D.C. contains large sculpture of Abraham Lincoln. That image of Lincoln is a reflection of what Lincoln looked like. Likewise, we are a reflection of what God is like, not physically but in other ways. For instance, we are spiritual beings like God is. We are intelligent and moral beings like God is. We are rulers like God is. We are workers like God is. We are relational like God is. What is man? Halverson concludes his piece this way. According to the Bible man is of intrinsic worth. He was created by God in his image to be loved by God, to be a friend of God, to enjoy Him forever! Man therefore is of infinite value. Conclusion Well, we are off and running in our overview study of the Bible. In Genesis 1 we are introduced to the eternal God who made the heavens and the earth, including human beings who he made in his image. Between Genesis 1 and today a lot has happened. Amazingly, human beings would reject and rebel against their Creator, thus damaging the image of God in us and limiting our ability to carry out the unique role he has given us. Even more amazing, God didn t give up on us, but

8 8 instead set in motion a process that would lead to the coming of a Savior, Jesus Christ. We ll get to all of that over the next 51 weeks. As we cover all of this territory, we ll keep coming back again and again to table. The Lord s Table reminds us of what unique creatures we are and what a unique relationship we have with our Creator and what a unique project we are engaged in with God. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, We are God s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10) Or as he said to Titus, Jesus Christ gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:14)