Redemption City Church
Genesis: Origins Part 1 (Mike Bartlett) 09/08/24 (Genesis 1)
Thank you, Susie, for reading our text this morning. Good to see many of you back. Good to see lots of college students in the house here as well. We were just getting to hang out this week at Cornerstone and Calvin. Any Calvin students here this morning? Oh, well, well, yeah, we got a few of those. Any Cornerstone students in the house? I'm right, I'm right. And I'm missing probably any GVSU students and there's some other folks, I'm sure, around as well. But it's always fun getting back into the season here in the fall, you know, over the summer. We're definitely taking it easy and then as the school year kicks into space again, it's fun to have a full house and to be able to dig in to God's Word together. And it's particularly exciting to be kicking off a brand new series this morning on the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which I'm calling Origins. And so it should be a lot of fun getting to dig into this book together. So many big questions, so many big issues in this book. I'm not going to be able to cover them all, but man, I love your questions. So the things I don't get to cover and tackle in this series, you can always come reach out to me. I love questions and as you're digging into this book together. The title Genesis of the book, which we're saying, comes from the opening lines of the book in the beginning. It's a transliteration of the Latin titles of Genesis is just the Latin word for beginnings for origins. And so we're going to be looking at origin stories as we're looking through this series and how they shape our lives, how they shape our worldview, how they shape the way we think about pretty much everything in this morning. I am going to be tackling a large chunk of text as Susie was just written this morning. Genesis chapter one, one, all the way through to three, the very opening prologue for the book. And we're going to dig a little more deeply in weeks to follow into some of the details here. But this morning is a big overview. So I'm going to try and hit some of the big themes of this book and when we're talking about origins today, many people want to pit science versus religion, right? As a significant theme, you start talking about origins and think of the origin of the species or something like that. And all of a sudden people are thinking, how does this all mesh with science? To just take one recent illustration, millions have read, you've all know a Harari's New York Times bestseller, Sapiens, a brief history of human kind. It's one of the leading efforts in our time to create an alternative origin story through the lens of modern science, his opening lines substitute the wonders of modern science for the majesty of God's creation. And so listen, just the opening lines of his book here and see if you see maybe some resonances with Genesis here. This is what he said about 13.5 billion years ago, matter, energy, space and time came into being and what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features is called physics. About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structure called atoms, which then combined in a molecule. The story of atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry. And then about 3.8 billion years ago, when a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology. About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures. The subsequent development of human cultures is called history. If you feel like you're in college right now or a class like right now, I'm sorry, I know you're trying to get away from all that. But what I want you to see in this text here is that instead of in the beginning God, there are deposits in the beginning science, right? In the beginning physics, chemistry, biology, all of these things. It's a bold attempt by a historian to create an origin story stripped of all the religious superstition based purely on science. And here is his equally bold conclusion at the end of the book. And I thought this was interesting for us as we're thinking through this series and trying to set a little bit of the background. This is what he said, "As far as we can tell from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose. Our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan. And if planet earth were to blow up tomorrow, the universe would probably keep on going with its business as usual. As far as we could tell, at this point, human subjectivity would not be missed. Hence, any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion. So there's some good news for you this morning. All of your attempts at meaning and purpose are just a delusion. I'm sorry to have to communicate that to you. That's one of the origin stories right in our world today, the way people are thinking about the world. And it's part of the reason why we have a meaning crisis in our culture right now. Because we've stripped away. We've tried to ask science to answer all the questions that science can't answer. So I want to give just two points up front here as we're just dipping our toes into the series here. First, it's important for us to understand that what science can do and can't do. Science seeks to figure out how the world works and not why. So science is asking how questions, how does the world work, not the big, why questions. That's more of a philosophy theology question. And of course, that's a noble calling to understand the world we're living in. This could teach us how the world is, but not how the world ought to be. Science could tell us this is how certain biological processes, chemistry, this is how physics works. But none of the world ought to be. Some of the moral choices that we need to make in the world, and Harari is honest enough to admit that from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning. Science simply cannot supply the meaning for our lives. It's not designed to. That's not its purpose or its calling. By contrast, it is worth seeing that the creation narratives in Genesis 1 are far more interested in the why questions than the how questions. So if some of this science stuff already, you're like, I'm checking out because I don't want to hear about science, chemistry, and physics, in church, well, there's good news. The Genesis narrative is not as excited about those things either. In fact, the why questions are the primary questions the book of Genesis wants to answer the creation account speaks directly to the meaning of human life, ultimate existence, and the question of God, who he is, what he's like in the world, while only indirectly addressing the questions of modern science. So this is important to keep in mind as we dive into the story. So following the text, we're going to focus more on those why questions than the how questions. If you're fascinated by science and you said what, we're going to have a lecture on physics and chemistry and biology. Come talk to me. I have a whole shelf full of books for those of you who are interested in the interaction with religion and science. I would love to talk more about that. Second, well, there is a temptation to jump straight to these big contemporary challenges we have to realize that while the Bible was written for us, it wasn't written directly to us. We have to wrestle with what the text was saying in its original context before we could take the leap to contemporary application. With Genesis 1, 1 through 2, 3, this is especially important. A lot of misunderstanders could be alleviated simply by understanding the original context of this book in its ancient Near Eastern context. So I want to start this morning. We started with Harari, a little of our modern context. I want to start with a little bit of ancient Near Eastern background. You guys all right if I talk about ancient Near Eastern cosmologies for a few minutes here? I'm not demanding a lot of you in this sermon from the introduction here, but it's going to be fun, I promise. These ancient Near Eastern stories are fascinating. Very interesting to read. I got to read a bunch of them this week here. Genesis 1 is an ancient Near Eastern creation story or cosmology and it was written about three and a half thousand years ago. It was written as God's people were leaving Egypt for the promised land and it offered God's people an alternative to the origin stories current in Egypt where they had just spent the last 400 years. The stories coming out of Mesopotamia, the most ancient center of civilization in the world of that time and the stories in Canaan where they were going as the people. So God wanted his people to be prepared with an understanding who they were, where they're coming from, what the world is all about and most importantly of course who is the true God. And Zorak Yahweh just had on earth many of these accounts, so we were able to compare and contrast them with the biblical story and I think as we dive into this this is going to be very helpful as we're trying to look at the distinctiveness of the Christian account. It's different than the ancient Near Eastern stories, we'll see and it's different from some of the modern attempts that modern science has made to describe scripture. So first these alternative ancient creation stories typically seek to vindicate a particular nation and it's God's superiority. So the Anumelish, perhaps the most famous of these ancient creation accounts from Babylon contains an epic battle to God's which ends with the slaughter of Tiamat, one of the great ancient gods with her body being split into pieces ripped apart and out of this bloody mess a world being created and of course Marduk, the god of the Babylonians, I think I have a picture of him. Where's Marduk there? We've got to get a good picture, there he is and then Marduk bringing order out of the primordial chaos out of the battle of the gods and also bringing order to the Babylonian nation and from there bringing order to the world through the great Babylonian Empire. And so that's one of the great ancient stories that we have in the ancient Near Eastern. So Marduk triumphs over this other god, rips her body into the greens, makes a world out of it and then he decides to create humans out of the blood of another god who is also brutally and ruthlessly destroyed and he mixes the blood of this god with some dirt and makes human beings to essentially do all his dirty work, make sure he is fed well with lots of sacrifices and to make sure the gods don't have to do manual labor. So that was the main priority of these ancient gods and it's a strikingly different story from the story we read in the New Testament. In these ancient areas whether these are Babylonian, whether they're Canaanite or they're Egyptian, the earth evolves out of a conflict, a struggle amongst the gods, there's violence, there's bloodshed, there's primordial chaos and finally one of the gods kind of defeats all the other ones and brings some measure of chaos to life and human beings are made as the god servants to do their dirty work. So that's a basic summary of the stories that we're circulating in the ancient Near East in which God is going to communicate a different story to his people. While there are many similarities, the belief in the supernatural realm, gods who interact with people, the seeism metaphor for chaos, what would be shocking to the original audience of Genesis 1 is the appearance of only one god versus many, so monotheism versus polytheism. Creationists is supreme work of God rather than the result of war and chaos in the heavens, the goodness of creation versus its brutality and how all men and women are created into God's image. Not just kings or princes or people in royalty here and thank you for hanging with me through that because I know there's a lot of background and build up for this story but what I hope here is that contrasting this biblical vision for our origins with ancient Near Eastern creation accounts and modern origin stories like Harari's helps us bring the biblical vision more sharply into focus to see just how unique it actually is. Many of us, if we've grown up in the church like, "Oh yeah, the Genesis story has been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, read that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and we miss just how shocking this narrative would have been to its original audience and how shocking it is to our contemporaries today who are reading it in light of stories that are out there in our culture. It's an origin story that has been offering meaning and purpose and vision to literally billions of people from every part of our planet and if I had to put this radical idea into one sentence, I would describe it this way and this is my big idea for the sermon. There is one true God who created the heavens of the earth to display his goodness and glory. Now to some of you that may not be a very surprising statement but to the original readers of Genesis, that would have been highly controversial, highly shocking, highly surprising, not what they were expected and to the culture we're living in today. Again, this is not something that would be the standard idea of how to look at the world. So it's really going to unpack this statement this morning in the brief time that we have left. I want to look first at God's existence, right? There is one true God, I want to look at God's work as the creator God and I want to look at God's goodness. Those three principal ideas I think have incredible implications for our lives today in the world in which we live in. My aim for this morning sermon is that we would see God's goodness in creation respond with wonder and worship and thanksgiving. So let's pray as we dive in after this extended introduction as we actually get into the actual text of this book that we would see more of God's goodness and more of God's glory coming out of this text and so far. Thank you for bringing us all together this morning. Thank you for an exciting start to a new book of the Bible and not just an exciting new sermon series for us but we're beginning, the very beginnings of the biblical narrative, the biblical story. What is foundational to our whole understanding of the world, who we are, why we're here, what our purpose is, what our place is, who we are as men and women and all of the huge questions that come into play as we're thinking about who we are and our identity. God, I pray that you'd meet us as we study this book, God, that even in the mundaneness of our lives and all the fallen world around us that we could see through the brokenness around us some of your beauty in creation that would shine through to us so your goodness would be real, that it would be evident, that it would be tangible, something that we could be on the lookout for this week. Would you meet us together as we open your word? Would you reveal new things to us? Would there be new connections, new insights, new ways of understanding and seeing who you are and what you're like and ultimately with the end of all that be greater worship and love for you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, amen. So we have, after that extensive introduction, I'm going to try to stay a little closer to the text, but as we're reading the text, I really didn't think the impact of it would really come as strictly if we didn't set some of the background against which we're reading this particular narrative and I want to start with the opening line and while there are many memorable opening lines in literature, few pack the punch of Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, some of you could probably even recite it to me from memory in the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens there. That's pretty remarkable. There's not a lot of passages in the scripture that I could just have an entire room full of people recite from memory, but that verse has so shaped the world in which we live our worldview or our thought of the world that it is something that is in our cultural imagination. If you're not a Christian, you might be familiar with these opening verses because they have done so much to shape Western civilization, the world that we live in, and now the global world as this message of Genesis 1 continues to impact and interact with new cultures, new peoples, new races, and new ideas, bringing its explosive ideas to new peoples around the world. The first thing I want you to see, don't miss that there is a God before the beginning. In the beginning, God, before creation, before anything else was, God was already here and that is incredibly important for us to see. Before creation there is a creator and he is preexisting, he is eternal, he is uncreated, he is the author and originator of everything that is, he is the author of the story in which we find ourselves and these opening lines of the Bible assume his existence. This is the starting point for the biblical authors. They don't go into a lot of apologetics, they don't go into a lot of evidences, they don't talk about science, they just start here in one one saying, we've got to begin with God, this is where the Christian story starts, God's existence is foundational, right? It is the assumption that we can find truth in the world, the goodness and the beauty around us are all flowing out of who God is and what he has done. It's an audacious claim, it's a daring claim, but it makes sense of everything else. Why we can understand the world, why the world has uniformity, why we can find meaning and purpose and value in it while there is consistency and coherence and science, why all of those things make sense are because there is a creator God behind all of it and there is nothing quite like it in ancient literature. This was absolutely new, absolutely revolutionary, an idea that literally changed the history of the world and so let me give you just a few examples here because you probably are not experts in ancient Near Eastern cosmology, but just how different this story was from the stories, the Israelites around them were hearing every day, there are numerous accounts of creation emerging out of a power struggle of the gods, but the idea that one God created the world not of any deficiency in himself, but out of his desire to share his goodness and glory is striking, that this guy just comes on the scene and out of the fullness of himself, out of his love and his goodness and his glory just wants to share himself with creation, that is revolutionary, the gods of the ancient Near East were selfish, they were petty, they were vindictive, human beings were their servants were their slaves to be used and yet God creates the world to be shared with creatures that he makes in his image, it is radical, it is subversive, the gods of the ancient Near East were often made up of the elements of creation itself, they worship the sun, the moon, the stars, the great sea monsters and then we read in Genesis 1 that God created the sun, that God created the moon, that God created the stars which the ancient thought shaped their destiny, God created the great sea monsters, these were the gods of antiquity and here are these Hebrews saying no actually, the gods of antiquity were created by the one true God, the creator God, these are radical, radical ideas, ancient Near Eastern crowns abound with violence and brutality but if you notice right here in verse 2, the earth was without form of war, darkness was over the face of the heat and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, there is so much violence and brutality in the ancient Near Eastern accounts but here you have this beautiful picture of a mother bird hovering over its nest, God bringing forth life and vitality and creativity out of the world, it is a beautiful maternal imagery for life coming out of the nothingness of creation that is there, all these raw elements of creation, radically different from what we see in the ancient Near East and while man is created to serve the gods and some kings were thought to be created in their image, the idea that every human being, every single person, an image bearer of God, radical unprecedented, totally without any kind of precedent in the history of the world, every single person in this room is an image bearer of God made in the image of God himself, radical subversive ideas that have become so ordinary to us that we miss, I think their power and their goodness, even something as simple as the goodness of creation is without precedent in the ancient world, right, in the ancient world the world emerged out of chaos and violence and brutality and hopefully the chief God was going to bring order to it all but in the Christian account the world is a good creation of God, a gift for humanity to enjoy and so the opening lines of Genesis offer a unique starting point for people both ancient and modern which leads me to my big question for this morning which is this something I think we should all be asking ourselves what is my starting point, right, where do I begin? The Bible begins here within the beginning God, that's the starting point, everything flows out of that, of course there are many other starting points, many other places you could begin, you could begin like you all know a Harari, right, with energy, matter, space and time all colliding together through fortuitous chance to create the world in which we find ourselves today, you could start with other religions, other backgrounds, other outlooks, what's your background, what's your starting point, right, some of you, obviously your church people grew up in the church, right, some of you might have grown up in more secular households with different views and different outlooks, some of you maybe grew up with different religions, entirely different views of the world, have you given much thought to your own assumptions, your own starting point, are those assumptions true, have they been tested and most importantly maybe are they working for you, that is a wonderful question to be asking as we're thinking about our starting points, our presuppositions, where we begin in the world for Christians, let me just state a few here that ultimate reality is conscious, it's not just matter, energy and space, ultimate reality is alive, right, the reality before the rest of reality, the creator before the creation is conscious, consciousness is not a mystery for Christians to figure out because God is the originator of it all, we know ultimately that ultimate reality is personal, not just a life force like Star Wars that just kind of diffuse through the universe but it's a person, a personal God that you can have a relationship with, that you can interact with and of course that brings us to the fact that ultimate reality is in fact relational, already we see the subtlest hints of the Trinity in this opening chapter with the spirit of God hovering over the waters in verse 2 with God's creative word at work in the creation of the world as we see in John 1, Jesus is that word of creation and then also finally in verse 26 God saying let us make man in our image, who's the us, making man in our image, this is God, the triune God, a God who's existed forever in perfect relationship and perfect love, that's the kind of God that we see here in Genesis chapter and this is no lonely God who's existed forever and got bored or needed some hobbies but this is the God who out of the love within the Trinity created a world to reflect in his glory and his majesty and his goodness and there's ultimate purpose right we know in this world God is purposely designing this world it just didn't emerge out of the primordial chaos where a conflict of the gods this world has purpose and meaning and value, God is writing a story in it and we get to be a part of that story as Christians and so I could preach a whole sermon and almost did on chapter 1 verse 1 here but I'm trying to give you an overview here and so this opening line already offers an alternative to the rather squalid polytheism of the day and the rather nihilistic materialism of our own time and when we come to the creation account itself notice that the dominant theme is God at work instead of God at war this is something I think I miss just reading through this text just very easily is that the creation story that the literature of it the narrative and it's a beautifully artistically crafted account is really about an ideal work week when we look at Genesis chapter 1 we see God is the great craftsman the great worker and he's building a cosmos and so from the ancient world the world emerged and its creation emerged out of violence out of bloodshed out of chaos but for the Christian story the earth emerges out of God as his masterpiece as his work of art it's essential to see here that the structure the narrative structure of Genesis chapter 1 is structured in a series of days you'll notice as you go through anything I have a slide up here right we have day 1 we have day 2 day 3 day 4 day 5 day 6 and then finally on the seventh day God rested now a lot of discussion has transpired about the length of the days but we can't be dogmatic about them right the Hebrew word yelm usually means 24 hours especially in context like this where there's mourning any evening but it can also refer to a designated period of time most famously the the day of the Lord and the minor prophets and so here in Genesis one it's particularly tricky since the first three days don't even have a sun or a moon which are the traditional markers of our 24 hour day and so this is something Christians have debated throughout church history and the Reformation I thought this is interesting the controversy and how long the days were like if God just spoke and it came into existence why did creation take seven days couldn't have been done in like five minutes or like the length of my sermon God could have just been like light stars done done and so the reformers were like what why did it need to be 24 hour days and of course today the argument goes the opposite way why are the days so short how could creation have happened in 24 actual literal days when you know modern science things that happen to very long periods of time I'm afraid we're not going to solve this perennial dilemma today it's been argued about throughout church history but I can point you to some helpful resources if you're interested in the nature of those creation days but what the which some of you may be fascinated in but the author of Genesis is not as interested in the science or the nature of those 24 hour days but in conveying a message about God's creation week this beautiful days in which he crafted the universe lovingly carefully like an artist like a master craftsman crafting the world together and we see a different kind of God a God sovereign over creation meticulously crafting the cosmos and filling it and so in the first three days I think I have a slide up here too there is God's creating the spaces in which the creation is going to find itself and so in day one you have the creation of up keep going one more slide and you've got no keep going one more or am I missing it here oh no not that one either huh I don't know where it is anyways the creation of day one right it's light separating light and darkness and then you have sky and sea then you have land and water and in those three days of creation you then have the filling of each of those things which I had a really lovely slide you know conveying that so it would be a diagram for you to see because it's kind of complicated to understand the structure of those first three days setting the scene and then the final three days are filling them with life and all the good things what the nearest trying to convey is the beauty of God's creation as he is crafting it as he's building it as he's lovingly putting it together and so when we're thinking about creation Genesis 1 as a workday we see this coming finally explicitly in Exodus chapter 20 verses 9 through 11 which we do have a slide for here because this is what in the same in the Pentateuch still you know this is this is the author of the Pentateuch reflecting back on that creation day and its significance for humanity today which is helpful right because you know this is significant for us as we think about our lives and how they're shaped Genesis 29 through 11 six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath the Lord your God on it you shall not do any work you or your son or your daughter your male servant your female servant or your livestock or the sojourner is within the gates for in six days the Lord made the heavens and the sea earth and the sea and all that is in them and he rested on the seventh day therefore blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy and so we see here in this opening chapter is God at work and God resting and it's the pattern and paradigm for our lives right imagine a week where everything you set out to accomplish was completed has that ever happened right a week where everything was completed imagine a week where everything you do is good everything you do works perfectly imagine me where you look back and everything you accomplish you could say it is very good right nothing bad happened as I was talking to Jesse this morning he said that he put a nail through his finger and I was like imagine a week which I just can't even imagine the pain of but imagine a week nothing bad happened to you you didn't have to make any hospital visits there are no emergency room trips there were no migraines there were no none of the things that make our lives so miserable imagine a week like that imagine a week where everything you do is not just good but very good right that that's what we have here in Genesis chapter one and then imagine stepping back to rest remember and just celebrate all the good things you accomplished that week yeah you ever done that that's a wonderful exercise just to sit back after a week and just go man accomplished so much this week it was incredible so many beautiful things that I was just able to send out into the world that that's the vision that's captured for us in Genesis one through two three it's it's God's work it's a it's a model week it's an ideal week and so a question that I would love for you to consider my second big question here is what would an ideal work week look like for me as I'm thinking about my life and organizing it and thinking about how to how I would be using the gifts God has given me the gifts talents and abilities God has given me creating his image to use for his glory what would it look like for for me to have an idea ideal week that may seem like a futile exercise given the fallen world we live in but in God's image we were made to be sub-creators right we get to be little sea creators we get to create things out of the goodness in the world around us we're made to also enjoy as we make and as we build and as we create then we get to rest we get to celebrate we get to enjoy that same work just like our God in heaven right futility doesn't get the last word in the Christian story we get to be a part of God's work which he sweeps up into his bigger story a story which has a beautiful happy ending I love the advice chair talk engaged with son Michael in one of his letters during one of the darker days in world war two before he had finished his masterpiece the the Lord of the Rings he said this in his letter there is a place called heaven where the good here unfinished is completed and where the story is unwritten and the hopes unfulfilled are continued we may laugh together yet I love that vision for the world we all have that that ache for Eden that desire for a world in which everything right we accomplish there's no futility there's no frustration right everything we do is perfectly accomplished it's satisfying it's enjoyable it's fruitful it's meaningful it blesses the world we all long for that kind of place and in the Christian story right ultimately those hopes those dreams left unfulfilled here will ultimately be fulfilled in a new world a new heavens and new earth and so we work with hope here and now in the way we think in the way we interact in the world right there's a lot of ways to get down there are a lot of things that can frustrate us to be down on in the world and down on our own productivity and down on our own abilities to accomplish but this chapter of jettison's one gives us a beautiful vision for the work we were created in god's image to to fulfill and create so we're both the god's existence god's work and finally god's goodness i really do have several sermons i think in here so i've got to i've got to pick up the pace here a little bit um but versus the chaos and brutality of the ancient near eastern alternatives and modern evolutionary biology survival of the fittest this story is remarkably and the focus of it is about god's goodness the goodness of god and the goodness of creation i'd be remiss not missing it in god's work it's not just that god created that means the earth it's that he created them good throughout uh the genesis days there is a crescendo building not only did the accounts lengthen as the week goes on but they are building to a climax starting at verse four we see that god's creation project is good and so the guy have a slide up there with the different goods the days of the good oh yeah yeah goodness of god there god saw that the light was good and then each day except the second we see the pronouncement and god saw that it was good that's the refrain part of this beautiful hymn this beautiful song of creation in chapter one there's a refrain to it and it's about the goodness of god about the goodness of creation by the time we get to verse 31 we read everything that he made god saw that it was very good everything everything god made no no flaws no imperfections none of the futility and frustration that accompanies our work everything he made and it was very good right this is a beautiful hymn of celebration of god's unbridled goodness and generosity in creation light and dark sky and sea sea and land sun moon stars birds sea creatures land creatures and ultimately human beings all very good all created by god john kelvin says it this way the whole world is a theater for the display of divine goodness wisdom justice and power and so by the time you come to the end of chapter one you're just getting this beautiful hymn to the creator about his beautiful creation his goodness and his generosity that's supposed to orient who we are as people and orient our perspective on the world and our place in it and so a question to consider here am i seeing and celebrating the goodness of god in creation right there's so much that's deeply broken in this world that we live in that it's easy to fixate it on the fall right to see only the evil our news cycles and social media feeds right they they make money by like you know getting us angry about all the terrible things that are happening around us the injustices the evil and that's happening right that's what sells right now and so we get trapped into that cycle of negativity we get into that feedback loop of toxic thinking um and so we need to really recalibrate our brains to see the goodness the the beauty behind all the brokenness right we need to use all five senses to see and savor the goodness around us right we need to capture the goodness in writing and song and poetry it's not enough for me to stand up here and talk about it or for the author to write a a beautiful hymn of praise we need to sing about it we need to celebrate it we need to journal about it in our in our weekly rhythms of our lives to capture the goodness of god in the world around us and so genesis introduces us i think to the one true god who created the world display his glory and goodness in the prologue we are introduced to that great creator god and all of his creative genius his rest and enjoyment of that great creation but genesis one is just the overture of a great symphony right it is the the first revelation of god's goodness and glory like the opening act in a beautiful drama or a beautiful play we're getting this key theme of god's goodness revealed to us and everything that he's made including ourselves and lake the that opening act it's going somewhere this story is moving somewhere all of this goodness is going to a destination right there's going to be as we're going to see a fall there's going to be conflict entering the story there's going to be brokenness and yet there is greater goodness to be revealed in fact we might say god's goodness revealed and creation will only be surpassed by his goodness and redemption and new creation where god takes all of the brokenness in this world and all of the brokenness in our lives all the pain maybe we're even bringing this morning with us invites us back into this beautiful song through jesus in fact the good news is that god is putting everything in this broken and fallen world back together through jesus and he's starting with us he's inviting us back into the story back into this beautiful song of creation for us to be a part of that great work for all of our mundane ordinary lives to be swept up into this greater story and into this greater song and we see that ultimately displayed for us right through jesus right and as we orient our lives around him as we put our faith and trust in him as we seek trying to save ourselves and put our faith in jesus he brings us into that great story because god's goodness will ultimately displayed for our good on the cross where god's own son died the death we deserve and rose again to give us new life it's the ultimate triumph of good over evil on the cross where we're all of the evil all of the brokenness is finally once and for all defeated by jesus that's where this story is going we're in the first overture of the symphony but it's all going to lead us ultimately to jesus triumph over sin and death and Satan and to a new heavens and a new earth well no more sorrow pain or suffering where the garden will return and we'll be back in god's presence once again so what would it look like each week to remember that there is one true god who created the heavens in their display his goodness and glory let me give you just a few applications a few takeaways here as we're landed the plane here first jesus one beckons us to wonder to see the world with new eyes to see the beauty beyond the brokenness jennison invites us to join the song of worship to use all of our five senses to experience the wonders around us from sushi to sunsets to all of the glories of the created world west michigan beaches to those delicious apples that are ripening right now on trees around west michigan to those delicious donuts and hot cider uh we're just called to attune our senses to the wonder of god in creation and one of the application's questions is there margin in your life for for wonder to just just pause to reflect on god's goodness in creation the the wonders of all that he's done um or we just kind of toiling on that rat race uh making our way we're making time for wonder in our lives second genesis reminds us that we should receive god's gifts with thanksgiving the apostle paul says that this way in verse timothy four four five four four four through first timothy four four three five for everything created by god is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving first made holy by the word of god and prayer that is an incredible statement everything created by god is good nothing is to be rejected it is received with thanksgiving what good news hold out your hands church and just receive the goodness of god in creation receive it with thanksgiving if wonder is a posture of seeing and savoring and experiencing um thanksgiving is more of a practice it's a it's a discipline it's stopping to turn the everyday blessings have gotten to moments of intentional thanksgiving it's capturing the ways god has been good writing it down journaling it speaking it to others making it a part of your rhythm you know traditionally christians have gathered around the dinner table to thank god for the food or thank god for their lives we we've built it into the fabric of our lives moments of thanksgiving and gratefulness for all the good gifts god has given how am i practicing thanksgiving do i have an intentional way in my life to be able to actually track the ways and blessings and goodness of god in my life and finally god made us in his image that we're going to talk more about this next week the image of god i know i just lightly touched on it we're going to talk more about rest there but but god made us in his image to be creators to be sub-creators right we're called to bring good things out of the goodness of god's world to do something beautiful with it and so a question here what am i making what opportunities do i have to make an incredible meal to build a beautiful piece of furniture some of you were building houses some of you are building a world of ideas that are impacting the world making in a better place some of you are just learning and thinking and writing papers in school and projects you know what am i making where am i getting to exercise these beautiful creative opportunities well this opening creation hymn is all about the one true god's goodness and glory it's all about god in case you didn't notice it's a hymn and a song of praise to god and his creation i hope you've been able to see that if there is a god there is meaning and purpose for our lives so i want to come kind of full circle to where i started with a harari's conclusion in sapiens remember what he said as far as we can tell from purely scientific viewpoint human life is absolutely no meaning humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose our actions are not part of some divine cosmic plan hence any meaning that people ascribe to their lives is just a delusion this is the meaning crisis confronting our culture but let me give you an alternative from another oxford professor another way to think about maybe the world in which we're living in that would maybe help us to rethink what it is to live in this world see us louis said it this way the christian said creatures are not born with a desire unless satisfaction for those desires actually exist a baby fills hunger well there is such a thing as food a duckling wants to swim well there is such a thing as water men feel sexual desire well there is such a thing as sex if i find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that i was made for another world if none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it that does not prove that the universe is a fraud probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it but only to arouse it to suggest the real thing if that is so i must take care on the one hand never to despise it would be unthankful for these earthly blessings and the other never to mistake them for this something else of which they're only a kind of copy or echo or mirage i must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country which i shall not find till after death i must never let it get snowed under or turned aside i must make it the main object of my life to press on to that country and to help others do the same because there is one true god who created the heaven the earth his for his goodness and his glory there is meaning and purpose in this life beyond this fallen world and we're invited genesis is inviting us into that story and into that psalm and my hope and prayer is that we as a church would be able to rejoice in that privilege and that opportunity and share that meaning and hope that we have with our city with our friends their families and ultimately our world let me pray father we thank you for this beautiful opening chapter this hymn of praise to the creator we thank you for the opportunity to revel in his goodness to us in all of the simple and mundane things that we experience and we thank you for the opportunity to dig a little bit more deeply into it this morning father particularly for those that are seeing not the goodness of your world but the weightiness of it the heaviness the brokenness of it i pray you give us eyes to see through the brokenness the pain the sorrow and the tears to that good creation that good design that you have for us god that you would ultimately lead us through ultimately to reflection on jesus and the hope that he brings as he's making all things new and so this morning we pray that you would speak to people through these words that we'd have fresh eyes fresh wonder to see your creation but most of all that we'd be swept up into this great story that you're writing in history and we pray this all in jesus name amen so each week here at redemption city's hurts we set aside time to celebrate the lord's supper together