GENESIS: Beginnings
Amen, amen. So why Genesis some of your getting nervous? We did the book of Acts together. There's only 28 chapters. It took about two years. If you don't know there's 50 chapters in Genesis o y Genesis and how long O Lord right? I don't know how long that's going to be the fun part, but why Genesis because Genesis is an absolutely vital and crucial book in the scriptures for such a time as this I've been feeling moved by the spirit and led by God and a deep desire to preach their Genesis because I believe that the the the reality of Genesis and the issues that Genesis wrestles and grapples with a really epicenter of many of the issues that we wrestle with together as a culture. Issues of identity issues of of relationship and marriage issues of what it means to be a person issues of where we came from and where we're going Genesis is smack at the heart and the middle. Of much of the challenges that our culture is wrestling with on a on a daily basis and end really it's it's we've been wrestling with a lot of these issues for a long time. We live today in a culture that has made Faith In Jesus and faithfulness to the word of God and belief in science and belief in progress mutually exclusive thing. I remember my 7th grade science teacher standing up and talking and talking about Darwin and the theory of evolution and if you believe in creationism you are a fool.
All saw through my education all through college. I was met with this this Stark distinction. You can either believe in God or you can believe in science. And the reality is most of us in this room. This is our traditional service after all we grew up in a different culture than today. We're going we grew up in a different culture than our kids are growing up and our grandkids are growing up and sweet. We live clearly in a post-christian culture and Society. And by that, I mean the shaping of our culture the major tenants and beliefs of our worldview have not been shaped by what the scripture says that have been shaped by other voices of authority. It's one of the reasons that I want to walk through Genesis. I want to dispel the myth that faith and science are mutually exclusive. I think 95% of those arguments are based in a misunderstanding and miss miss miss application of what the text is and what the text is actually saying. I want to set us free to believe in God and Delight in the works of the creator. I want us to think critically and rationally rationally and reasonably about what it is that God is trying to communicate to us and I believe that we desperately desperately need it. We need it. There's two passages in the New Testament that have been just ringing within me as I've been thinking about Genesis. The first is in Romans 1 and preach this text just a couple of weeks ago. This is nice in Romans 1 verse 19. It says for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made so they are without excuse for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish Hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. This is text in Roman one describes one of the arc that the direction of life without God. We we move away from the book The clear reality that creation bags and demands a Creator and we move away to exchanging the glory of the creator for the glory of the created.
and I think that describes very Succinctly and very profoundly where the culture of our world is moving today. And there's this valid reasons for it. If we exchanged the glory of the creator for the created we can do what we want when we want how we want if I acknowledge a Creator then I might have responsibilities to that Creator. He might have him put and say in who I am and how am I I live my life. So there is a way that seems right to the man but in the end it leads to death there's a way that seems right so I can exchange the glory of the creator for the glory of the Creator. I can leave my life the way I want. deliver
Paul writes to Timothy and 2nd Timothy Chapter 4 he says this I charge you in the presence of God.
A charger in the presence of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his Kincaid him preach the word be ready in season and out of season reprove rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching preach the word. Remember New Testament. The New Testament is being written while he writes that what you saying preach the word he's talking about what we call the Old Testament. Why? Because it has the ability to reprove to correct rebuke to exhort. Keep people in the word of God.
Search for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own fashion. I think when we look at our culture, that is exactly what we see. We find teachers that will tell us what we want to hear. We don't want God to be the authorities. We already know what we want the authority to say, so we find somebody that lines up with it.
Next week we need. A greater Authority than ourselves. We need a greater Authority than another human being we need the revelation of God.
So I want us together. The dig into Genesis just see what it is that God has for us in this book of beginnings and allow it to shape us. The God's reality rather than try to shape God to our reality. We need the god. That is not that we got not the guy that we think that is we need the god. That is not the god that we want to be. So if you got your Bible, let's let's let's get going. Let's get into Genesis. You ready? Are you ready? Thank you Genesis 1:1 in the beginning. God created the heavens and the Earth. . That's all we're doing in Genesis this morning. It will take years wanna let's be honest. In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth Genesis is a book of Beginnings. It's a book that is written to help us understand where we come from where we are and where we're going. Let me say this way this morning. Genesis is a book of cosmology. That's that's not hairdressing. Not that it's not that magazine. You see in the grocery store aisle cosmology is is the study Cosmo world. Logos study of the study of the world. It's the study of the origin structure and fate of the world. Everybody has a cosmic you walked in here this morning with a cosmology. You made you maybe didn't know that's what it was. You maybe didn't know the word you maybe didn't call it that but every in order to function in life in reality. You have to have some sort of functional cosmology. You have to have some sort of answer to the questions of where we come from. Where are we? Where are we going?
The Bible is written as Genesis is written as cosmology. It is written to explain and declare and reveal and Proclaim where we came from where we are and where we're going. Genesis is cosmology.
But it's more than that and this is where it gets challenging and tricky and difficult because Genesis is ancient cosmology.
Genesis was written thousands of years ago. In a language that none of us speak or read or understand to a people that had incredibly different understandings of the universe value systems. They lived in a completely different complex culture and and we have to avoid the mistakes that CS Lewis called chronological snobbery about that phrase chronological snobbery. It's the belief that because we live in 2019. We've Advanced so much more than everybody else and everybody else who lived before us. I'll let's be honest just a bunch of idiots really didn't know anything. just because somebody a radically different life and had a different value system and ask different questions doesn't mean that they were stupid. It doesn't mean that they were foolish. It's simply means that they are give friends. And that's where the challenge comes because Genesis is cosmology, but it's ancient cosmology. It's written by an ancient people to an ancient people.
And that becomes a challenge for us. I've been saying this over the last few weeks. The Bible is written for you. It is written for you. I don't want you to ever think that because the Bible was written to someone else if it's not for you it is absolutely for you. But at the same time it was not written to you. When we sit down and read the book of Genesis today in our modern world, we're looking over the shoulder and reading somebody else's mail. We're eating somebody else's mail and if they got inside language. We got inside jokes that they refer to things in ways that we don't necessarily understand or think about they might use the same words in radically different ways. It's a communication only happens when we have a shared understanding of the words and Concepts that we're trying to bring across. It's more than the words language is culturally shaped and accommodated. Give me an illustration of this point you imagine with me. 1000 Years 2000 3000 years past In America is no more and an English as we speak. It is no more. Maybe there's a anillo English that somebody speaking but it's it's not like it was it. So there's a future archaeologists comes in and he studies the United States and he's digging through the rubble of our country any finding texts and any and any fines attack. Find suit the fragment of a text is best to translate its teeth. He looks at Neo English and he looks at other things and you may be fine all these things. So he translates the text and the text says they were running late because of daylight savings time.
the how in the world would somebody that far away from our culture? understand what that sentence means do the words tell you they were running late so they were running. When is the word running we're not generally mean physically running. But they're not going to know that all I have is a text they were running. So apparently Americans in the 20th century all they did was run.
What is that? They were running late because of daylight sit. So sunny outside daylight savings. They were there trying to save light. What does that mean? It means something more than the words right? You can you can translate and decipher those works. Daylight savings time you have some understanding of the culture that created that weird phrase. You'll never understand what it mean. Translating the word looking at the words alone will not explain the concept.
Family, I want you to know that as we read Genesis there are hundreds of phrases in Genesis like daylight savings time.
They're all over the text because it's ancient cosmology. It was not written to us. It's written for us, but it's not written to us if we sit down and try to read Genesis. Okay, I'm going to read Genesis. I'm going to I'm going to do a literal reading of Genesis. And I'm just going to read it and whatever the text says I'm going to believe that if you try to do that. Through the lens of your culture your assumptions your value system your presuppositions about what those word mean. You will never get a literal interpretation. The most literal interpretation of a scripture is an understanding of what the author actually said and what the author meant when he said it what the audience purred and what the audience heard when they heard it.
When you sit down to read the text.
You've got to you can't just read it. Will this is what this means to me? Cuz it doesn't matter what it means to you and it will only have real meaning to you when you understand what the author meant and what the audience her. The authority of the scripture is not in the words themselves. The authority of the scripture is in the authorial intent that's revealed by the Holy Spirit. We stand under the authority of what God actually said and what God meant. Not what you think God meant.
And that's that's a challenge for us as a church culture. Because the church in the west we've grown up on flannel graph biology. Remember photographs and Sunday school. We just take a story we put up some sheep. We take another story with throw up a steep. Hello fuzzy pictures with turn them into modern morality plays the teachers how to be good little boys and girls and we take the first year that we like we take a verse here that we like. We apply it. However, we want to Because we think subconsciously that the authority lies within us that we decide how it's true. We decide what do you think about texted and said we just rip stuff out of context and we're so used to doing it. We don't even see anything wrong with it anymore in the church. The repercussions of it are tragic and massively important because we've lost we've lost the sense of the grand Narrative of scripture. Lost the storyline. Story in the sense of a fable or myth with stories in the sense of an explanation and understanding of what life is all about.
My experience in the church over last 20 30 years. Is that many if not, most of people in the church today. Are claiming allegiance to Jesus but they are living their lives not out of a Biblical worldview without of a worldly worldview. We've been shaped not by the scriptures but by our society. So the big question the important questions in life. Oh, yeah, we believe Jesus cuz we don't want to go to hell and we want to go to heaven.
Are we actually live our day daily lives it in and out. We haven't been shaped by a Biblical narrative. We're not living in God's story. We're trying to figure out how we can fit the infinite inexhaustible God into our teeny tiny little story. So we ravage the scriptures to do it. Let me just give you one example I got hundreds. Cuz this is what we do. We ripped X Out of scripture. Imagine with me that we're going to have a wedding this morning good church wedding. You always got to have a couple of scriptures read right 1st Corinthians 13 no-brainer, right love is patient love is kind will always do that. The one that I fear almost as much as 1st Corinthians 13 comes from The Book of Ruth and if you use this text in your wedding, I'm really sorry for what I'm about to do. All right, because there's a text in in route that it says where you go. I will go your family my family. Your people will be my people York.
That sounds sweet. That's so nice. We should say that our wedding is what we're coming together and your people to be my people. That sounds so good. And we do it all the time. The only problem with that Ruth did not say that to her husband her husband was dead. She said that to her husband's mother her mother-in-law. That's cool. You're making the pleasure from even say what's the harm in that the harm in that is that that text was written. That's what that you can rip it out and make it say something that you wanted to say in a nice emotional way at your wedding day that text was written to reveal something of the Hidden purposes of God's in the grand meta-narrative of scripture and rip it out. We missed the main points.
And listen to blame lies squarely on preachers and pastors and leaders over the last 50 60 years because we've been preaching topical sermons three points in a palm. Let me give you seven steps to being a better husband. Let me give you 5 Steps to having a secure financial future until we take a verse here we take inverse there and we tell people as long as you got the verse, it's good. It's Jesus and were claiming the name of Jesus, but we're living out of a different value system. So it's no wonder that were divided. and not Unified no surprise that we're not bearing the fruit that we see in the New Testament names and the trappings. We deny the power there in. Cuz we're living out of a different story. Genesis was not written to us but it is written for us and it is written.
To give us a deep understanding of the most important things in life. Genesis is worldview. over the next few weeks Here's your homework. You can come to church expecting homework. Did you well, you got it. Here's your homework. This is your mission. Should you choose to accept it? Nothing will explode at the end of this. I want you to read Genesis 1 2 3. Not vs103 chapter 1 2 3 Genesis chapter 1 2 3. This is the cosmogony how existence came into being I want you to just read Genesis 1 2 3 try to read it. At least once this week. It's not that long. You could probably read it every day this week. Just just start to read it. Just start to listen to the text. And and for extra credit, this is what I'd love for you to do start looking for words or phrases for Concepts that make sense to you but might have a different meaning to somebody that lived thousands and thousands of years ago. What are those possible daylight savings times phrases and words that are used in the text that you were going to understand them? We've got to understand them as the author wrote it and as the audience heard it not as we understands that makes sense. So I know that's hard work and that's a challenge for us cuz we are a fast food culture. Write the only way we can communicate now is on Twitter with 128 characters or less everything sound like we want everything quick him and the church's move the same way. Memes and quick sermons and five minute devotional how to start your day with 90 seconds with Jesus and everything will be awesome.
To read the Bible correctly. The study Genesis in such a way that its actual study that we're trying to understand what God was saying what the author meant what the audience her to do that is hard work hard work. I want us to work hard together. I know we've created a system of church where that's supposed to be my job, right? I'm supposed to do the hard work and study it chew it up like baby birds. I'm just a spit on your mouth like a great illustration. All right.
And there's a level of Truth to that like God has appointed some to be Apostles prophets teachers evangelists in my spiritual gift in my passion. I love to study the word of God. I'm free to do it in ways and what time the most if not all you don't have so I'm glad to do that. But if if that's if that is your diet. If your diet a Biblical truth and scriptural knowledge is upon me chewing it up and spitting it out for you you're starving.
Your unhealthy your your your spiritually withering away. We have to learn to study the word for ourselves. We have to learn to let God speak to us through his words and that means we all have to put in the work the part of what I want to do in the series on Genesis is help you to do that give you some of the skills and tools that'll allow you to engage the text itself.
The last thing I want is for you to say what I believe this cuz that's what Pastor Jeremy said. Pastor Jeremy's an idiot. He's nothing. I want you to say this is what I believe because this is what the Bible says. This is what God said. This is what I've come to see and understand and know in the text. Cuz once you see it, nobody can take it away from you.
So it is hard work, but we got to do hard work. Like look at 2nd. Timothy Chapter 2 says do your business is the Awana verse right that grew up in a want to do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of truth. That's our mandate. That's our mission as we study Genesis together over the next however many weeks God lets us to do that. To be Workman to be people who correctly handle the word of Truth. We've got to put the work in. So over the next several weeks we're going to start in Genesis 1 to 3, and we're going to see it as as the formation of a biblical worldview.
Every worldview and everybody has a worldview does most of us live without critically thinking or analyzing our worldview. It's just assumptions. It's assumed worldview is caught not taught nobody sits down at with a child and says, here's our worldview. No, our children pick up our worldview just through living like everybody's got a worldview Genesis offers us a distinctly God Center biblical call world view and every world you have to answer for significant questions the first is this the question of environment, where are we? What is this weird thing called life? What is material stuff is this real are we living in somebody else's virtual reality? Does this matter? Is it limited? Where are we? What is the nature of reality? What is life? Is it the world good bad or neutral? Every worldview has to answer this question of environment the Bible in Genesis answers the question of environment radically different. Then our modern cultural answer. Or environment where are we? What is this world that we are in secondly every world you has to answer the question. Who are we? The question of essence. What is it mean to be a person? What does it mean to be conscience? What what does it mean to be existing in the world? Like what is it? What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? What are the differences? What are the similarities the basic anthropology? What does it mean to be a person? Are we the same as the rest of creation? Are we different than creation? What are the similarities? What are the differences every worldview answers that? Again, Genesis answers the question of who are we radically different? Then our world today is answering the question. Thirdly, you got to deal with the question of what the heck is wrong with this place? Question of evil what's wrong? If you don't have to live very long to know that it's very wrong. And it's something innate in every human being and this is universally true every culture every time and every place has had a deep inherent sense of things are not the way that they're supposed to be. There is something wrong and broken with creation. The question of evil how do we deal with the reality of evil in this world? And it's not just the evil in the world. It's the evil in the mirror that I see every morning.
Genesis gives us a framework an understanding of evil and how it functions and how it will function within God's creation. Our culture frankly our culture tries to ignore the question of evil as much as possible. Because it simply doesn't have an intelligent rational explanation or place for evil scripture does. Lastly question of eschatology. Where are we going the doctrine of last things that's what eschatology mean environment. Where are we Essence? Who are we evil? What's eschatology? Where are we going? If you been around here for any length of time, you know that this is one of my passions. Because the American church has adopted and accepted a gospel. It says something like this your terrible sinner. If you believe in Jesus put your faith in him when you die, you don't have to go to hell and you get to go to heaven. Nnn, the fundamental eschatology of that gospel is that the world is a terrible place and Jesus came and died and rose again so that we can get out of the world. And the only thing wrong with that is everything cuz that's not the Bible's eschatology.
Genesis from the beginning gives us a framework that though evil has come into the world. Just like he doesn't give up on you and me going to give up on his creation and there is a day coming when all of creation will be made new. Because God our God is a redeemer. Our God is a restorer and I don't know if you know this or not. But God wins in the end evil will not Triumph love wins wins all will be made new.
Are the weakness of the American church is that we're living out the wrong story. We're living out the wrong gospel. We think it's all about believing in Jesus so we can get the heck out of Dodge.
Jesus came to begin the radical Redemption and restoration of all things through us. Our hope is not that we get to get out of here. Our hope is that Jesus is actually coming back and he's going to make all things new.
Genesis gives us a worldview from God's perspective. This is God's revelation of reality. How we answer and live by these questions? That's our worldview. And I'll say it again for clarity's sake there are too many today in the church who are who have faith in Jesus, they claim the name of Jesus, but they're living out of a different world view. That's why we're not United.
Cuz cuz I say I follow Jesus and you said you followed Jesus, but I've got a whole different understanding of what it means to be a person. How we should value the world or how we should Stewart our resources because depending on your worldview, depending on how you answer those big question. You're going to live in radically different way.
It's what we need is the unity of the spirit. What we need is a shared world view a shared understanding of God's story. that we're invited into rather than trying to figure out into us. They close with Romans 15 it says this. It says whatever what was written in former days was written. for our instruction bet through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures. We might have hope in the midst of it though. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil. It's hope now and hope that last it's not the hope of Escape. It's the hope of recreation.
And all the scriptures whatever was written was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement scriptures. We might have hope May the god of endurance and the god of encouragement Grant you to live in such harmony with one another in a cord with Christ Jesus. That's a gather you met with one voice glorify the God and father of our Lord.
I don't got time to dig into that the logic of those three versus is beautiful. It says this scripture was written by God to instruct you to encourage you to endure and the god of encouragement and endurance is the one who will make it happen. And so when you are instructed by the scriptures, you will become unified in your relationship and when your unified in your relationship, then you're able to give glory to God.
This is the challenge in the modern church today.
Everybody's walking and claiming the name of Jesus but living out of different worldviews. The scriptures were given to establish and instruct and encourage us to endure in the truth of God's word.
In order to do that we got to work hard. So I hope to see you a lot over the next few weeks. Let's be honest 2 months. Let's listen and let's learn. from the revealed scripture of God that our lives may not be built upon sand. But might be built upon the solid rock of Truth. What is Jesus Christ Our Lord and our savior? Amen?