Sermon Tone Analysis

! Genesis 1:1-2:3 The Creation September 17, 2008 Jan Henderson

A little girl crawled up into her great grandmother's lap one day.

And looking up into her great grandmother's face she saw all those crevices, lines, and wrinkles.

Then she felt her own smooth baby-like skin.

She said to her great grandmother, "Did God make you?"

Her great grandmother said, "Yes honey, God made me.

" Then the little girl said, "Well great grandmother, did God make me?"

Her great grandmother said, "Oh yes, God made you too.

" And then the little girl said, "Well great grandmother, don't you think God's doing a lot better job these days?"

I.

In the book of Job, the man Job was having a really bad time, I mean really bad.

He had lost his children, his livestock and his health.

This was a real man with real heartaches and real questions.

This was a man who believed in God but who was being challenged by the world as to why a so called good God would be doing this to him; a world whose best answer to that was either, God wasn’t good, or Job deserved it.

When the world had had spoken to Job, when the wife had encourage Job to curse God and die (Job 2:9), when human wisdom had had its say, Job finally heard from God.

A. I am reading from Job 38:1-11.

B. The interesting thing about the story of Job is that God never explains to Job the why of his pain, He only presents the who of who He is.

1.

As readers of the book of Job, we know that there were things going on in the spiritual world outside the view of Job and his friend.

2. But God does not inform Job of the drama behind the drama.

3. God simply confronts Job with who He is.

That is enough; the why questions disappear when Job faces the creator of the universe.

The why question simply evaporates.

C. As we begin to look at this biblical account of creation this morning, I am pretty sure that some of you are anxious to, as one author has said, get your apologetical batteries recharged.

1.

By that he means, get some good solid scholarly ammunition to refute your friends who argue for evolution.

2. I am really not the one to do that; there are wonderful books and even ministries that major in those arguments.

3.

But when the wisdom of the world has had its say; there will come a time when anyone really interested in the origin of this world will have to let God speak for Himself.

4. A man will never come to spiritual understanding by human argument.

Job had the best advice a man could ask for from men who were supposed to be his friends; but Job had no understanding of his life at all until God spoke.

He wasn’t even asking the right question.

5.

If you think that science will one day prove the existence of God, and that the whole world will then be converted; you are mistaken.

a) God is the judge of science.

b) Scientific discoveries do not confirm the reality of God.

c) God confirms the accuracy of scientific discoveries.

6.

If a person comes to believe in the accuracy of the bible because archeological finds in the Middle East prove the stories to be accurate; then their belief is in a book's accuracy and not the reality of the God of the book.

a) Now, I don’t discount that some of these discoveries open men’s hearts to the possibility of God; but at some point they must let God speak into their life before their faith is living and unshakable.

b) We have read, and seen all that man said about the origin of the earth.

D. So the first question this morning is will *you let God speak*?

Will you listen, at least give ear to His account of the story, given that you weren’t there?

II.

We begin; in the beginning God.

This phrase is telling us that in the beginning of creation God was there - God has no beginning Himself, and given that that whole idea is beyond our comprehension, I think we just have to leave it there.

No human words can explain God; nor can we fathom any dimension outside of our time reference; we are locked in seeing in the time~/space dimension in which we were created.

But as that time~/space dimension was about to be created; God was already there.

A. The story of creation was written down and given to the Israelites sometime after the nations Exodus from Egypt.

While it may have existed in oral tradition or scratched on family scrolls in the centuries before that; Moses wrote it down as we discussed last weeks and the very scrolls on which He wrote it became sacred scripture among the fledgling Jewish nation.

B. It certainly wasn’t the first written account of creation; many cultures have their own - often with eerie similarities to the Genesis account.

C. My guess would be that as the new born nation of Israel was about to make their move into pagan Canaan; God wanted His story fresh in their minds.

Yes, they were to route out the pagans in that land, but God knew of mans predilection for disobedience and He wanted His story told.

D. Again, whither He is able to convince you of the truth of it, is between you and Him; but let’s let Him tell it.

III.

God created the heavens and the earth.

God created the realm in which He would work and the stuff out of which He would fashion the things in that realm.

A. Allow me a bunny trail.

We often say that we are like God in image because we too are creative.

And perhaps there is some truth in that statement; but probably not as much as you might think.

B. We can create all kinds of things, but we have to work with things already here.

1.

We can rearrange; reconfigure and reuse; but what we come up with is just a variation on something that went before.

2. The first house; was a different use for the first tree; or the first rock depending on how you build.

3. The first auto; was just a different way of using, tin, wires, and gas.

Gas was just a different way of using a fuel already in the ground.

4. All of our creation is limited to the materials at hand.

C. God created the realm in which He would create (the time~/space dimension in which we are locked) and the materials which would be used for His creation.

D. There has been much discussion as to why the earth was formless and void with darkness over the face of the deep, as described in verse 2.

1.

I think your commentary discusses that a bit and I have had to contain my desire to discuss all of the various answers to that question with you; using clever charts and theories in my possession; because they are all theories.

2. Our understanding of those words is not as important as our understanding of the God who wrote those words.

The answer to Gods question to Job, Where were you when is I wasn’t there.

3. God chose which pieces and parts of the creation story to give us; I believe to show us things beyond the historical account.

He wants us to know Him; in His creative role.

a) When He spoke with Job; the point was; He created and governs the physical universe and all created things within it.

b) Here is what I see in verse 2. God can bring form out of the formless; light out of darkness.

He can create and recreate according to His purpose.

c) My heart is more interested in knowing that than in learning the actual time line of creation.

d) My heart is comforted knowing that the very Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters - once He had created water to have a surface over which to move.

4. I think your commentary did a great job of reminding you that the God of creation was the corporate; Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all present before the creation, all involved in it from the beginning.

IV.

Then God said, Let there be light and there was light; and God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

A. God will make three separations; light from darkness, sky from water or the waters above from the waters below and then the land from the sea.

B. In this first separation, I want you to notice that God did not say that the darkness was good.

C. The things God made were good, I believe because they would ultimately show people about His Son, they would give testimony to, or witness to the Son.

D. We don’t have to go very far to see how LIGHT fits that bill.

1. God is light.

I John 1:5

2. Jesus is the light of the world.

John 8:12

3. Of course this creation of light is good, it speaks to us something or God.

4. But symbolically and spiritually darkness speaks of that which is not God.

5. God tells us that He separates the two; there would be something called day; before there was ever a sun in place in the heavens; and there would be something called night.

6.

I honestly don’t think God was giving us information so much as He was telling us about Himself and this world He would relate.

He was telling us things with physical pictures we could understand.

a) If you know your bible you know that one day there will be no more night (darkness).

b) Why would God create something He had no intention of leaving?

I think He meant the darkness to speak to us of spiritual truths; beyond what the eye could see.

c) Throughout the bible God speaks of people who come to His Son being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

d) Often night is uses to symbolically describe the kingdom apart from God. Do you remember when Judas left the Last Supper, John was clear to tell us that when he went out it was night?

e) But one day there will be no more need for that picture.

*Rev 21:23 - 25*

7.

And so we had one day from evening to morning; could we say the earth made one revolution on its axis?

Ever wonder why Jewish people have always considered that the day began at sundown - God begins His recounting of days there was evening and morning, one day.

V.

Then God said "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters."