Sermon Nuggets Feb 27 –Genesis
Verses- Gen 1 1 In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the
earth was formless and empty, darkness was
over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the
waters.
How It all Began
As I begin a sermon
series from the book of Genesis we know this is where the story of God begins.
I think the Bible takes undo criticism by the scientific world when they try to
make it something it is not. In my own questioning as to whether the Bible was
true or not I came to an observation. Scientific and medical theories kept
changing all the time. What was told to me in elementary school was no longer
true in Jr. High. What was told to me as true in Jr. High was false in High
school and that was suspect in college.
Truths of the scientist’s claims kept changing. The Bible didn’t. But the more
I thought about this subject I agreed that science and the Bible didn’t change,
scientists and theologians did.
What method would
best to used for the Creator for framing a beginning to his book and to
establish that God is also the our creator? In language simple enough for all
men in all time.
I came across a writing by Frederick
Filby, Chemistry professor in England. A study of Genesis in Light of Modern
Science “The most amazing
composition in all the world’s literature using only 76 different word forms
fundamental to all mankind, arranged in a wonderful poetical pattern yet free
from any highly colored figures of speech. It proves the perfect opening to
Gods’ book and establishes all that men really need to know of the facts of
creation. No man could have invented it: it is a great a marvel as a plant or a
bird. It is Gods handiwork, sufficient for Hebrew children or Greek thinkers or
Latin Christians; for medieval knight or modern scientist. for little children
for cottage dweller or cattle rancher or deep sea fisherman; for Laplander or
Ethiopian, East or West, rich or poor, old or young, simple or learned
sufficient for all. Only God could write such a chapter and he did”
Genesis is part of Holy Scripture and therefore
has been given to us by God and speaks with His authority, 2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is God breathed and
is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
The Bible looks at
creation as revealed in the first chapter as an historical fact. Ps 136 speaks of the creation much like it is
recorded in Genesis, and then goes on to speak of the other miraculous events
in the history of Israel. Jesus talks about Adam and Eve as real people. Paul
refers to the same when he introduces Jesus having a new creation compared to
Adam who represents the old creation.
We begin this week looking at the way in which
God introduces Himself to us. There wasn’t anyone around to record this, so most
agree this is probably from Moses as he spent time writing what God revealed to
him. They did know some of the stories as they were passed on, but before that
time they really didn’t. Two important ways God wants to reveal Himself to
mankind is through creation, and through His writing and inspired Word. This
series allows us to look at both.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Tues Feb 28 God’s Permanence
Verses Gen 1:1 “In the beginning, God….”
The Introduction to God’s Permanence
“In
the beginning God.” Science might be able to take us back to the Big Bang theory
which they point to as the moment of creation, but if that original colossal explosion
obliterated anything that came before it, as some scientists suggest, then nothing
before that point can be known scientifically including the cause of the
explosion. The Bible comes forward at this point to tell us. “In the beginning
God.”
God confronts us as the One who was in existence
before anything we can even imagine and who will be there after anything we can
imagine. He is from everlasting to everlasting.
There has been lots of discussion recently about
God from among the ranks of theologians and clergymen from within our Baptist
General Conference. Because of the debate going on at the annual meeting,
people have been discussing how much of the future does God know. Most of it?
All of it? Some of it?
The fact that we are
even discussing this surprises most of us because God is from the beginning to
the end. As we begin to try to define him he is beyond description. Many
hundreds of years ago there was a wise man named Simonides. People came to him
because he was one of the wisest men that lived. They asked him. “What is God,
Simonides?” He said, “Give me a day to think about it.” They came to him the
next day and said “What is God Simondies?” He said “Give me a week to think
about it.” After the week passed they asked him again. “What is God?” “Give me
a month to think about it? Following the month they said once again. “What is
God, Simonides?” To which he replied
“Give ma a year to think about it.” At the end of the year the returned and
asked the same question “What is God, Simonides?” And he said, “I am no nearer
than when I first began to think about it. I cannot tell what God is.”
There are not boxes big enough, no mind
comprehensive enough, no words all inclusive enough to describe God. We are
limited in our understanding and in our experiences to convey his person and
character so we must be humbled yet awestruck at who He is and how this all
began.
Since we are creatures
of time, and God is not, how can we describe something outside of time since
everything is sequential from our perspective. We have had a past, a present
and a future. But time was not until God decided to parcel our out time by
creating day and night. Now time began. Before day and night there were no
universal watches- measurements or descriptions. To say God is ever permanent
he is always was and forever will be brings us to the end of the series of
questions but who created this, then what, what was before that? How did that
begin and in the end we have the mystery of the revelation of the Bible that
says, “God always was” In the beginning God. As far back as we can think there
He was. So our history –earthlings begins who knows how many thousands, or
millions or billions of years we can identify in our time verse one. In the beginning
God.
Psalm 90 is the song that David wrote when he
reflected on the character and nation of God and how is all began. “Lord, Thou
hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were
born, Or thou didst give birth to the earth and the world even from everlasting
to everlasting. Thou art God.”
God was in the beginning
No earth, no sea, no sun, no stars, no planets, no animals, no matter, no
energy before God. When you use the phrase in the beginning God it is telling
us that God is self-existent. This is not true of anything else. Every effect
must have a cause. But God is the ultimate cause and is Himself uncaused.
A.
W. Tozer pointed out that science is
the discipline that has the task of accounting for things and are impatient
with anything that refused to give an account of itself. You can’t measure God,
you can’t explain him, but it is with this impatience that you are forced to
ignore or deny him. God’s self existence also means that he is not answerable
to us and we do not like that. When John F. Kennedy Jr. drowned and I heard the
news in Alaska there are people demanding of ministers to answer from God why.
He doesn’t answer and so people prefer to ignore or deny him. He does not have
to explain Himself to anyone, least of all me.
Genesis is
the beginning of inspired revelations. God is the Author; inspirer, revealer.
He had no beginning. He is in all things and
by Him all things consist. He is before, in and after all things. He had
no origin. He wants us to know he is eternal and eternity is in his mind for
us.
You might look at Genesis as also the beginning
of the story of salvation. If you want a one statement summary of the book of
the Bible it is God’s revelation of Himself and his plan to mankind.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Weds Feb 29 God’s Power
Verse Gen 1 1 In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the
earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface
of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
.
Introduction to God’s Power
If the first verse says
that God was in the beginning the same verse says “He created the heavens and
the earth.” That is an introduction to his power. Humans are “creative”. At
best we form or fashion things in our imaginations but strictly speaking we are
craftsmen. We take words and sentences and create a poem or a story. We can
take mud, stone, or plaster, and create a sculpture. We can take pencils and
paper and lines and measurement and creation architectural building. We take
paint and create a picture, but we must have something from which to create
something else. God started with nothing and created something marvelous. He
saw all that he created and it was very good.
This idea of creating
the universe was in the mind of God. The Spirit of God was brooding over the
waters. There was chaos; there was no form; there was nothing.
People were debating
which profession was the oldest. The farmer bragged that Adam was a farmer so
his was the oldest. The electrician declared before the world began God brought
light, but the politician had bragging rights when he said, “Who do you think
created the chaos?”
There was nothing. The
way God wants us to be introduced to Him was through his power. By his word
something happened. He didn’t take something and form something out of
something. Sometimes he does. He took dust from the ground and formed a man. He
took a rib from man and formed a woman. That is power. But at the beginning God
wants us to know his omnipotence in a way that nothing can compare. From
nothing He just spoke the word something appeared. He brought order out of
chaos, light out of darkness, life out of death.
We have marveled once
again at the amazing power of nature when we see the devastating affects of
Hurricanes and Earthquakes and Tsunamis. Thousands are killed and millions can
be homeless Man might think he has power, but even a heavy snowfall like we are
getting today in Stanchfield can silence the land, so great machines can
sometimes take days to dig out. That is power, which still doesn’t compare to
the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, sky and firmaments and seas. And
God says. Let there be… and there was. John describes it this way. In the
beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.”
One day as William
Jennings Bryan sat eating a slice of watermelon. He estimated that the melon
was about 40 pounds, he collected a number of seeds and weighted them. Applying
a little mathematics, he was amazed to find that it took nearly 5,000 to make
up a pound. He wrote, “Recently someone planted just one of those little seeds
in the ground. Under the influence of sunshine and shower, it took off its coat
and went to work gather about 200,000 times its own weight. It forced all that
material through a tiny stem and built a watermelon. On that outside it had a
covering of green; within that, a rind of white, and within that, a core of
red. Scattered on the inside were more seeds-each capable of doing the same
work all over again. What architect drew the plan? Where did that little
watermelon seed get its tremendous strength? Where did it find its flavoring
extract and its coloring matter?”
Bryan then pointed out
that until we can explain a watermelon, we dare not underestimate the power of
the Almighty. In supplying us with these wonder, which our pigmy minds cannot
understand, the Lord has shown us His infinite wisdom and power. But then think
not only of one item, but the miracle of all of it.
To think of the vastness
of creation speaks to the power of God. I often thought of the greatness when I
think of the universe the stars and the galaxies. I had a college class in
astronomy and looked more and more of the complexities and the vastness of
space and it boggles my mind. But likewise in biology looking for life forms in
the microscopes the worlds get smaller and cells and atoms and protons and
amazing minuteness shows the power of the creative nature of God. But although
science describes life only God can produce it, in animal and vegetable forms.
Dr. James Boise, a
pastor in Pennsylvania told of Mr. Simeon a scientist from Cambridge University
was dying, he looked around and said to those in the room, , “What do you think
especially gives me comfort now? The creation! Did God create the world or did
I? Since He created the world, He can sufficiently take care of me.”
He not only has the
power to create the world, but is our hope for the future.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Thurs March 1 God’s Purpose
(Some illustrations today were taken from Sermon Central.)
Introduction of God’s Purpose
Why
did God create the world? Could it add anything to His glory? Could it make Him
more powerful, happier, and wiser? He revealed his glory so others can see it.
He ascribes to his creation an opportunity to communicate with the creator.
That generous attribute which is goodness results in “I have loved thee with an
everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn thee.” Love was
the motivation for creation to reveal Himself by his Work
The
fact that God created everything in it and tells us allows us to recognize his purpose.
God tells us what is right and what is wrong and that is why there is meaning
in life. Our chief reason for existence is to glorify him and enjoy him
forever.
The Scriptures
tells us also about the beginning of man’s history as it ties into the
Israelite people. It tells us about the beginning of the universe, of the
heavenly bodies of earth and the seas and the lakes and rivers and streams and
mountains and hills, of inanimate plant life, of animate life including water
creatures and air creatures and land creatures. It also tells us of the
beginning of human life and love, of marriage, and family, of work and play, of
food and drink, of pleasure and delight. It also tells us of the beginning of
sin and evil and consequences for fractured human relationships judgement and
death.
The beginning
of the Bible says “God”; the end of the
Bible says “God”. All that is in between is the story of God. It reveals God
who is working with His people and loves his people and wants them to get a
bigger understanding of who he is.
Creation is proof of
God. Since there is a world there must be a world maker. This was God’s way of
receiving glory to any, but a fool, who will look to the heavens and marvel. Ps
19 says, “the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his
handiwork.” You can’t hear their language but it speaks clearly of the majesty
and power of God. To say that man, plants, animals, the seas, the air the earth
turning on its axis, the sun around which we orbit an the infinite riches and
wisdom and planning of all nature- to say it just happened without a personal
Creator is to say that computers also just happened. All the metal and plastic
and microns and chips organized themselves.
The God who creates you
keeps your heart beating. He starts the juices that digest your food. He
supervises the kidneys that eliminate poisons from the blood. He creates the
antibodies in your blood to immunize you against certain diseases,
Some one came to an Arab in his tent in the
desert, and said to him. How do you know there is a God? He said “How do I know
whether it was a man or a camel that went by my tent last night?” How did he
know which it was? “By the footprints.” The marks in the sand showed whether it
was a man’s foot or a camel’s foot that had passed his tent. So the Arab said,
“That is the way I know God. I know Him by His footprints. These are His
footprints that are all around me.”
The purpose of Creation simply is that we might
know God and glorify Him.
Pastor Dale
Sermon Nuggets Fri March 2 God’s Personhood
Introduction to God’s Person hood
Now we have seen God is eternal, He is omnipotent, omniscient, loving,
but God is also self sufficient Being self sufficient
means that God has no needs and therefore depended on no one other than
himself.
When I was in high school I was chosen to recite a narration by James
Weldon Johnson to the musical background of a choir. It told the story of
creation in black poetry It began with “And God stepped out on space and he
looked around and said: “I’m lonely-I’ll make me a world. And far as the eye of
God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred mid-nights
down in a cypress swamp. Then God smiled and the light broke, and the darkness
rolled up on one side and the light stood shining on the other and God said,
That’s good.”
It goes on describing in picturesque ways how God created the rest of the
world, but when he was done God said “I’m lonely still. So he sat down and
thought, “I’ll make me a man” he takes clay from the river beds and shaped it
in his own image and breathed into it the breath of life. And man became a
living soul.”
Well it wasn’t intended to be a lesson in theology except to put in terms
some can understand the greatness of God’s power, but in fact God was not
lonely. He did not need us. We depend on oxygen, light, heat, cloths food. God
does not need any of these things. We need other people. Some suggest that God
lacked glory and created us to supply it. Or needed love and so made us to love
Him, or he needed us to worship Him. To worship and know God is our delight and
He glories in our delight, but God is self sufficient. But one of the reasons
God is not lonely is that he is perfect in the triune relationship which is revealed
to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There are truths that are clearly revealed in what is called progressive
revelation from the Bible. In other words God tells us more and more about
himself and mankind and his plan for the sending of Jesus, his Son into the
world to save us from judgment and sin. It talks about living for God and
loving God above all things, and it talks about the hope we have as believers
in Jesus Christ to have in heaven. It talks about Jesus coming again to bring
us unto himself.
After Jesus came on the scene there are some things he points out in the
Bible that were there all the time, only people didn’t understand it until it
was revealed. Some things are not pointed out by Jesus, but are seen after we
comprehend more of the story. When it comes to the person hood of God we know
he is revealed in three ways, as one in three. The Holy Spirit is clearly
identified not only as a Spirit from God but also as God himself. We call that
the doctrine of the Trinity. As we read other portions of the Bible we
understand God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit created the world.
Colossians 1:15-17 tells us that Jesus not only created all things but
they were created for Him and by him all things consist or hold together. When
creation was done, the Lord Jesus kept his hand on the universe and He keeps
planets in their orbits. We need not be surprised that in His life on earth
Jesus created bread and fish enough to feed the five thousand besides women and
children, and that He crated the wine out of water.
In some similar way the Holy Spirit works with Jesus then and now. We see
that the trinity had part in creation. It says the Spirit was hovering over the
face of the deep. Some will point out that the Hebrew word can also be
translated breath or wind. That is true in the Greek word also. But the Hebrew
word for God Elohim is plural. If you were to look at vs. 26, 27 God is Elohim
a plural form, “Let us make man in our image (that is plural) in our likeness.
Vs. 27 is singular pronoun, in his own image, he singular created man male and
female he created them.
Christ was active in creation and the Spirit of God who moved upon the
face of the waters. No jealousy, no competition, no aloneness in the Godhead.
They are separate but one.
We
say that Jesus is the savior of the world, but He is also not alone in saving
sinners when you think of the interplay of the Trinity. God so loved the world,
then Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, then it is the Holy
Spirit who convicts the sinner who brings about the miraculous regeneration of
the salvation in the believer so one is born of the Spirit.
This
begins dear friends as a worship chapter pointing us to our creator. It reveals
now only the awesome characteristics which are beyond our comprehension, but
shows a God who wants to be known as involved in your life and all the world
around you. Yes, through creation we worship and declare the glory of God, but
we also can know him as a friend as savior. Have you accepted his offer for
salvation today? What a great beginning for this is greatest creation of all.
Pastor Dale
