Lately, God has been teaching me about creation. How there is so much theology in the first chapter of Genesis. It has been a while since I last wrote on this blog. Life as a Youth pastor has bee much busier than expected. Blogging has been on my list every week, but in the "doesn't have to get done immediately" section and as a result, it made it's way to the back burner and even pushed off the stove.
Lots has happened in our lives, our son Elkanon (pronounced el-cannon) Jude Johnson was born on September 24, 2014. There were may complications with the birth and as a result, Colleen crashed 6 hours later and had to have emergency surgery to save her life, which in God's grace was, and not a day goes by that I am brought to tears of how good God is.
With this in perspective, and learning about this generation of youth that do not know Bible stories, God brought me to a series for the youth starting with stories from the beginning. I also was able to preach at a local church who is in need of Pulpit supply. I would like to share this sermon with you. Don't feel bad if you do not make it through as it is quite long. Enjoy!
Stories from the Bible – Grace Bible Church – November 30, 2014
Creation – Genesis 1-2
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I love reading novels. The development of the story, how everything ties in together, is just amazing.
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When a good novel is written, the reader`s imagination soars into the clouds.
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The first 2 chapters of genesis is no exception. When you reads them, you can`t help but daydream about what it used to be like.
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My favourite genre of the Bible is the stories. I love seeing how it all ties in. Not only that, how the Bible is one exceptional story of how we as people continually turn away from God, and in His grace and mercy, provides a way to himself.
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This is done through stories, songs, poems, essays, and letters. Every type of writing styles written by people from farmers and fishermen to lawyers and Kings.
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The beginning of a book usually makes or breaks a novel. Is the author able to develop the story enough and make a good foundation, with as little of paper, so the full story can be told.
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The Bible is no exception to this. The first 2 chapters of Genesis set the stage and foundation for what happens in not only the rest of the Bible, but for the unfolding story that happens today as well.
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As I have been interacting with this generation of Youth, I have realized they don’t know the Bible stories
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The stories that I grew up knowing like the back of my hand are new and exciting to them.
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As I contemplated this, and wondered where to go from there, God led me quite simply to the Beginning.
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So, for you today, I would like to go there as well.
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Show of hands, Who here knows the first verse of the Bible? That question is probably as simple as asking what John 3:16 says.
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Now I ask you, Show of hands again, who can tell me the second verse of the Bible, Genesis, 1:2
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Don’t feel bad if you don’t know it, when I asked the youth this question, nearly everyone knew the first, but only 1 knew the second.
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"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." From the New International Version.
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So the stage is set, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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There are many theories within Christian circles of how old the Earth is. Some say millions and millions of years old, and others hold to a young Earth theory some say as young as 6000 years, and from what the Bible says, the infallible Word of God, the answer is quite simple.
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From the beginning.
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So, I am happy to let the Scholars and Scientists debate this because I believe God wanted us to know that the Earth has been around since Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
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As important as the first verse of the Bible is, I would argue that the second is equally as important.
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Now the second verse of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters is very significant.
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Why you may ask? Because there was water. What is essential for life? Water.
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This means from the beginning, there was this potential for life.
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God from the very beginning of the heavens and the earth had a plan.
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He didn’t create humanity on a whim, or as an afterthought, but was purposeful from the beginning.
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Now, raise your hand if you know how many days of creation there are?
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Take a moment now as I ask you this question. Do you know what happened on each of those days in order?
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I know I can tell you with certainty what the days are.
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If you have small children, have grandkids, were a kid in the last 10 years, you will know Dora the Explorer
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Having 3 young kids, I watch alot of Dora the Explorer.
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As I was reading Genesis 1, I thought I was watching a Dora the Explorer episode.
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Every episode, Dora and Boots accomplish 3 tasks. These tasks are repeated over and over throughout the episode. In Genesis 1 it follows the same pattern.
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Light, Water, Dirt. Say it with me, Light, Water, Dirt. Light Water Dirt.
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And this cycle repeats itself. Days 1-3 go light water dirt, days 4-6 Light Water Dirt then on the seventh day, God rested.
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So day 1 - Light - What did god create? Light.
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A man was talking to God one day and had an idea. “God,” the man asked, “I have heard a second to you is like a 100 years and 100 years is like a second”
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“That is true”
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“And a penny to you is like a million dollars and a million dollars to you is like a penny”
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“Also true”
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“So God, please grant me this request, would you give me a penny?”
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God replies, “Sure, just give me a second.”
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I will wait a couple of seconds for you to get it. Maybe not.
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There is a lot of discussion as to what a day is. Is it millions of years? Because 2 Peter 3:8 – “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
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Was it 24 hours; was it millions upon millions of years? Again, it doesn’t matter to me, what matters is it happened. God spoke and created Light.
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1 thing only 1thing – Light - now this is pretty significant, but I will come back to this.
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Day 2 – “And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.”
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There are different theories out there as to what this vault of water was. Some believe it was a large shield of water that created a greenhouse effect on the earth that basically made the whole earth a tropical forest.
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Others say it is the Ozone layer that keeps the atmosphere in and “space” out
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Either way, having an atmosphere was essential for life.
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I was reading an article on nationalgeographic.com and it states NASA has come up with a criteria for life to exist.
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The Criteria are:
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proper temperature – one in which water will not freeze or boil
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water – around since the beginning
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Light – created on the first day
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Nitrogen – I found this humorous as Oxygen is not on the list but Nitrogen is
It is essential for the formation of amino acids
The Earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen – so when God created sky – He must have known what He was doing
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The last criteria is quite funny, but very important – Nothing that will kill you
Something as important as the Ozone layer to protect form UV light
Or the magnetic field of earth that deflects harmful radiation
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In 2 days, the life is now possible.
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As we look at our own Christian walk with God. We often want God to act now and fast, yet as we look at creation, God sets a foundation first, so He can create his greatest work, Us.
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Now we have water, light, air. What else is needed to have and sustain life – Think Biology – Photosynthesis – Plants
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Day 3 – God creates land with plants. Life not only is possible, but now is sustainable, again, God creating a means for us to continue living.
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We have gone through 1 cycle of Light Water Dirt. And now we are onto the next
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Day 4 – What was created? Sun, moon and stars
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The sun is 150 million km from Earth, it converts hydrogen into helium through thermonuclear fusion at a rate of 620 million metric tons per second and will eventually burn up in about 5.4 billion years give or take a couple years.
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The moon, responsible for ocean tides and the means by which ancient empires counted the months, seasons and years. From a humanitarian standpoint, the moon has a significant place human history.
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As I was studying this, I found it quite humorous. – How many stars are there in the Universe?
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Astronomists say there are more stars than there are grains of sand on the earth. How many grains of sand are there? And there are more stars?
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It gives a new meaning to Genesis 15:5-6 5
He took him (Abraham) outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring[d] be.”
6 Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
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Wow, that’s a lot of descendants and we are a part of that
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Galatians 3: 7-9 7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”[d] 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
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Just think of all the people there will be to meet in Heaven, in some ways, I understand why we will be there for an eternity, it will take that long just to say hi to all of them.
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Back to Genesis, listen to how it is accounted for in the Bible
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Verse 16 “God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” 5 words to describe the billions upon billions of stars out there – by the way, He also made the stars.
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Now, just for one moment think about it. How long did God take to create all of the stars?
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Ok now what did God create on the First day? Light. How much time did God take to just create one thing? 1 full day. How amazing must light be if God can create the billions and billions of stars in a day, but in that same timeframe, create 1 thing - Light
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Light is an amazing thing – it travels at 299 792 458 m/s . Which if you calculate the distance from the sun, it takes about 8 minutes to get there. So, when you are looking at the sun, you are looking at the past, 8 minutes ago.
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Light has no weight, just pure energy. In the formula E=mc2 the constant is the speed of light squared.
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According to the Wikipedia (because we know everything on the internet is true) – if an object of mass was to travel at the speed of light, it would take an infinite amount of energy to do so.
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How fast is God? Faster than light? Does God supersede light? How much energy does God have? More than an infinite amount.
The Nicene Creed states “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.”
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Did you hear that about Jesus “Light of Light” How fitting that Jesus is called the Light of the World!
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So, now, reflect on this Christmas season. Jesus is 100% Human and Jesus is 100% God.
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How did God take all that bigness and complexity and cram it into a human being. That to me is more mind-blowing than how Big and powerful God is, but how did He make it fit in such a little package?
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Then Day 5 – fish and birds
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I have often wondered why create sea and air animals on a separate day than land animals. And really the only conclusion I come to is that they are vastly different.
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For instance, when talking about types of meat, usually the one that gets the bad publicity is red meat like beef and pork.
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Somehow chicken, turkey and fish seem to escape the negativity and even lots of diets will embrace them, but not the red meat.
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Now we move to Day 6 – Land animals – when one reads a story and the author writes 10 pages on Uncle John but only briefly mentions Auntie Sue, who do you think is the more important in the story? Uncle John or Auntie Sue? Uncle John.
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Same here – the first 25 verses of the Bible are devoted to creation of everything – the next 31 – except the 3 that are devoted to the 7th day – are devoted to the creation of humans – namely Adam and Eve
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So, creation – light, the stars, oceans, animals, humans and the Sabbath, from the very beginning – all fit into 59 verses and 31 of them – over 50%, are devoted to the creation of humans.
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I would say we are pretty important to God.
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Not only are we important the Bible says that we are made in God’s image, that He formed us, not just spoke, but formed and then breathed life into us.
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Isn’t that amazing, we hold the very breath of God in us.
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Also very interesting is that God created mankind to decide. To think and make a decision.
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We were not created to follow our animal instincts but to create and have options.
Genesis 2:19-20 19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found.
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I find it interesting that God brought all of the animals to the man “to see what he would name them.”
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God not only created Adam with the ability to make a decision, but also to be creative.
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If he wanted to call an animal a platypus, he did. Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus orangutan, And the list goes on.
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We were not created to be robots, but to think an embrace that we don`t just blindly follow, but are to have substance in our faith.
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So…God searched all of creation and did not find a suitable helper for Adam so he took a rib from Adam and used it to form eve.
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Now if you follow Dora the Explorer, Adam looked at Eve and said “Wo-Man” (like Swiper)
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But we all know Adam was probably older than a child and was pretty ecstatic to see a beautiful lady and said “woah – Man” (like a happy teenager)
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The point of the story of Creation is not necessarily what was created, like the stars, air, light and fish, but the focus is that Mankind was created in God’s image!
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Think about it, you are the reflection of God in this world; you hold the breath of God. Does that not make you want to praise Him!
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The Creation account also brings a new meaning to John chapter 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.?”
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And Colossians 1:115-17 “15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
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We are physically alive on this earth, Only because of Jesus. We are Spiritually Alive in our Hearts, Only Because of Jesus.
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As I was saying in the beginning. I believe Creation is the perfect foundation to the rest of the Bible, The stage is now set.
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The rest of the Bible is the story of how Mankind turned from God and how God brought us back to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus, if we would only ask Him to do so.
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As you go this week, remember, I am made in God’s image, I hold His breath.
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As you look at others, remember that too, each one of you is special, because you are each a unique creation of God’s design.
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Pray
Along the same lines as my sermon, and if you have 45 minutes to spare, I would recommend this Louie Giglio sermon called Indescribable.
And a few pictures of our family for you to enjoy. Tune in next week (that's the plan at least) for 'The Marvelouseness of Manitoba!'
