Genesis Introduction

1st sermon: What’s important about the creation story? 9/23
Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen. 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

Questions raised by this text:
How did we get here? OR,
Why are we here?
Whoa! Disclaimer: we learn from this text…
We know how: God created us by his word, his will, ex nihilo.
We know why: God created us for his pleasure and his glory.
This sermon series is not about how old the earth is, etc, because Genesis is not about that.
[What about the questions of origins?
1. Evolution
2. Deistic evolution
3. Theistic creationism
4. Intelligent Design


Transition:If not about creation/evolution, then Why is the study of Genesis important?
My questions have always focused on HOW--If God created, then HOW did he do that? When did he do that? Does this text mean that God created the world in seven twenty-four hour days? If not, then how long were these days of creation? Or, how many years, did it take, how many millions? How can we measure the data to support God’s claim? What do we do if the scientific data collected contradict God’s claim as creator?
After 40 years of wrestling over these questions, I am ready to move on! I believe that the greater, more important questions have to do with WHY? In fact, I believe that Genesis 1 & 2 lets us know not so much the HOW, as the WHY.
Why did God claim to create the world? If God is the creator, WHY would he have created the world?
What does the creation mean? What does this say about my life and its purpose, its meaning, its choices?

If we cannot resolve the Creation/Evolution debate here, What benefit can we find in Genesis?
a. Genesis is the foundation of all Scripture, not merely the Pentateuch or the Old Testament.
a. If we are to understand the OT, or
b. If we are to understand the NT, or
c. If we are to understand Jesus; then we must master Genesis.
d. Themes of Scripture launch in Genesis 1-11:
i. God as sovereign (here, creator);
ii. light & darkness; form & purpose (telos);
iii. trees and the Tree;
iv. the Garden and garderning;
v. beginning and end; rise and fall;
vi. work and rest;
vii. words and language;
viii. blessing and cursing;
ix. personhood and family; ETC.!!!
If Genesis is THAT important, and so hotly debated, then how can we correctly understand it?
b. Genesis is presented as revelation in the form of story.
• There is no list of propositional truths in the OT; the Ten Commandments are a part of the story!
• There is no list of propositional truths in the NT; the Sermon on the Mount is a terrific summary!
• Westerners are terrific systematizers, but Scripture is not systematic, though thoughtful.
• All revelation in Scripture is couched in story form.
• If we are to understand Scripture, we must grasp the story.
• More importantly: this story claims to reveal the divine paradigm. Your story makes no sense without this story.

c. We live in a multicultural setting, a pluralistic society. Our neighbours live out of paradigms that we are unfamiliar with.
a. Those paradigms challenge our interpretation of the world;
b. our views challenge theirs.
c. Paradigm shifts are common now.
SHOW PARADIGM SLIDE
d. Scripture’s story is presented from the divine paradigm.

With that as introduction, let’s look at the text:
Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen. 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

What is important about the story of Creation? in 1:1-2
I. By what means did God create the world?
a. God created by His Word.
Gen. 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
i. Power of the Word.
1. External power in creation.
2. Internal power in humans.
Heb. 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
ii. Given to humans, uniquely in creation. We will return to this later in the series: teaser—why our words matter.

b. God created by His Will.
i. He carefully chose his creative activities. We will discuss that more carefully.
Based on your experience with your own body…
ii. You might wonder just how much care was put into his creation of you!
1. Illustrations of things that I don’t think so great, but God has good intentions for them.
2. CS Lewis’ thumb was double-jointed; he couldn’t create with scissors, to he had to write the story.

c. God created ex nihilo.
i. Out of nothing.
ii. Heb. 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
iii. Romans 4—we depend on him to do this again.
Rom. 4:17 (as it is written, “A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

iv. “God created” implies that the sovereign God of the universe was personally involved in this act.
v. “heavens and earth”
1. His will is all-encompassing:
2. “heavens and earth” is a merism, standing for all things between those extremes, meaning he created everything.
vi. “Spirit of God” was closely, personally involved in the creative process, in haunting contrast to the impression we might have from the geologic record.

vii. “in the beginning” requires that there BE a beginning; the world is NOT derivative.

viii. “formless and void” implies steps in creation, moving from disorder to order.


II. WHY did God create the world?
A. For his own pleasure.
Is. 46:9
“Remember the former things long past,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is no one like Me,
Is. 46:10
Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things which have not been done,
Saying, ‘My purpose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’…
B. For his own glory.
What’s this about?
Is. 48:11
“For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act;
For how can My name be profaned?
And My glory I will not give to another.

Application: God created with purpose; and he has a purpose for your own life, uniquely so, because he has created you by his will (thoughtful, intentional), thoughtful and intentional about you (to broadcast to the world all we know of God. You can know that unique purpose!
All this came into being by the personal intention of God, THEREFORE, SO DID YOU!
Conclusion