From the Beginning (Pastor Aaron Trelfa, 01/14/2023)

Today we are starting a new sermon series for the year. Not sure how long

it's going to go, but we are going to start at the beginning. It's loosely

titled, The Whole Idea of It is From the Beginning to the End. And you might think,

my goodness, are we doing the Bible in a Year Plan? Well, maybe in your own

personal devotions that would be fantastic, and there's a lot of really

good options out there. A quick Google search will help you find one. No, what

we are going to look at from the beginning to the end is how the

beginning of the Bible sets the framework and the foundation for all of

our theological discussions after that, and how a lot of what is there is also

going to be at the end. The stability of God, the grand and greatness of God, the

love of God poured out into creation and humanity, our response to

Him, the mess we have found. Some of these big issues, it's really good to kind of

get back to the beginning, but we don't only want to stay at the beginning

because there are implications to the end. When God says, I am, in that fantastic

statement to Moses, I am that I am, tell them that I am has sent you, that I am

encompasses He who was and is and is forevermore. And so we're going to look

at that from the beginning to the end. And so we are starting at the most

appropriate beginning, Genesis 1 verse 1 today. Let's offer one more brief word of

Genesis 1:1

prayer and then we will kick it off. Loving Heavenly Father, we are so

grateful that you have shown yourself to us, that you are not a God who stays so

distant, but you have revealed yourself. You want to be known. You want us to

search you out. And so as we begin this journey into your Word, this diving deep

into these passages, I pray that you would reveal yourself more and more

through the presence of your Holy Spirit and especially as we see you embodied in

the person of Jesus Christ. We pray these things in your name, amen. There are some

fantastic beginnings in literature, some really good opening statements to some

of the best writings that have ever been written down and cataloged and kept

We can think of the opening to The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. He

was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone

84 days now without taking a fish. Makes you think of a man who's alone but

experienced, but right now he's maybe a little down on his fortunes or his

successes. We can think of the opening line to Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Who

knows it? Call me Ishmael. And off you go. A book about this big started out with

three simple words. Call me Ishmael. And then one of my favorites, the opening to

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It was the best of times. It was the

worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was

the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of

light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter

of despair. And if you were to title a book A Tale of Two Cities and you open

with a list of opposing dichotomies, that's a great line and a solid

beginning because I would certainly read that and go how does this fill in and

finish out through the rest of this tale of two cities. I would propose to you

though that the best opening line in recorded literature if you will is what

we read in Genesis 1 1. If you have your finger there it's not hard to find. First

book, first chapter, first verse we read. In the beginning God created the heavens

and the earth. Why do we start there and why is that the best opening line in

recorded literature? It's deep and it's profound and it sets the stage for

everything that comes after that. We're talking theology. We're talking

ontology, your being. We're talking anthropology, the understanding of

mankind. We're talking sotorology, the study of salvation is in there. We're

even talking a little bit about Christology, the study and understanding

of Christ because John 1 1 takes us right back to here. In the beginning was

the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and it goes on to say

that that Word was God created. So we have all of this encapsulated in one

sentence. It is deeply profound and it is often largely abused. I don't mean by

that in that Christians tend to abuse it or those who believe in God's creation

but mankind has strayed or misused or worked it around because we are trying

to find something other than. If as Christians we believe that we are built

in the image of God, that God has had his hands on us and we're shaped like that,

that means a part of us has a spiritual aspect. We're not just flesh and blood and

bones and matter. We're not just our emotions and the firing of our synapses

in the brain. We're not just that. We also have a sensitivity to spiritual things.

Everybody demonstrates that throughout history and where people are searching

for that deeper moral existential spiritual thing, they come to various

conclusions because I would propose that even the atheist has a spiritual

conclusion. The agnostic has a spiritual conclusion. The various religions

obviously have spiritual conclusions. What we have and what we're going to

start with though is from Sister White and Testimonies 8 and just bear with me

because this is going to get kind of filled in. Those who question the

reliability of the scripture records have let go their anchor and are left to

beat about upon the rocks of infidelity. When they find themselves incapable of

measuring the Creator and his works by their own imperfect knowledge of science,

they question the existence of God and attribute infinite

power to nature. Starting with Charles Darwin most famously, I believe there

were some rumblings before that, but certainly with Darwin that's what we

have and that has permeated our culture and our scientific understanding around

the globe. At some point way back when and that number keeps getting larger and

larger and larger, what was not there all of a sudden became there and what was

empty and void all of a sudden had this flash and things appeared and it had

everything that we needed to finally kind of sort itself out all the way until

we have now. I've super condensed that. That's basically it. You have to ask

yourself well then what caused the spark or you know why or how long was there

nothing and then yeah I mean there's more questions that we never really

seem to come around to an answer but it seems that with the beginning of kicking

God out of the consideration then it makes sense you would start to kick the

rest of Scripture out of the consideration. God as creator means you

can start to exclude many many other portions of Scripture and eventually all

of Scripture including its objective external effect on us. I believe that's

why we've led to a very subjective society today. But then it's also this

because some Christians might also say that we have to exclude all of that

scientific stuff and maybe separate it from the Creator and what we see from

the Bible. Well there's a harmony. Sister White goes on, in true science there can

be nothing contrary to the teaching of the Word of God for both have the same

author. A correct understanding of both will always prove them to be in harmony.

Truth whether in nature or in revelation is harmonious with itself in all its

manifestations but the mind not enlightened by God's Spirit will ever be

in darkness in regard to his power. This is why human ideas in regard to science

so often contradict the teaching of God's Word. Our first look at this first verse

brings back into harmony God and nature, God and creation, God and science. Many

arguments have been presented for and against the existence of God, many

multiples. We're going to consider the one though that has had the greatest

influence on Christianity's understanding of God's pre-existence

because if we take note in how this verse kicks it off in the beginning God

created the heavens and the earth we have to wonder about the beginning and

God already being there because that's what we read. Moses was not inspired, God

did not impress upon him and Moses didn't take it upon himself to start

explaining why God was there or how God got there or anything like that. It was a

statement of fact that God there. After that don't stress, after that don't

consider or contemplate but men like to do that and so you have arguments that

try to explain how God could or could not have been pre-existing but our first

real takeaway that we'll look at today is that God pre-exists creation. First the

greatest influence in favor of God's pre-existence it was first presented by

believe it or not Plato and Aristotle. They have some influence on our

Christian understanding of things. It was further developed by Thomas Aquinas and

how he has phrased it and concluded has carried through all the way and it

actually still stands up. Other attempts at this really haven't been quite as

good. We call this the first cause argument, the first cause argument and it

goes something like this as you study nature as we look around at the natural

world and the order of those laws we observe cause and effect in nature. Is

that true? Let's use an example. Rain. We get a lot of rain in this area. We've had

a lot of rain this week. Well how does rain occur? Well rain is caused by the

moisture in the air as it cools it condenses and eventually becomes so

heavy it can't stay up there it falls. Well you have to ask yourself how did the

moisture get into the air? What caused the moisture to be into the air? Well

evaporation right as the liquids heat up they evaporate they rise and so on. Well

what causes evaporation? Well heat. What causes the heat on our planet? The Sun.

What causes the heat in the Sun to occur? Well I can't tell you the intricacies of

that. It's a very complex kind of nuclear thing that's going on in in this ball of

a hot and gassy and fiery furnace out there and that generates the heat. Well

what causes that reaction to happen? Do you see what what we're getting at? If

you follow that chain and all of the multiples of causes and effects as we

can observe in nature if you follow every one of them in the observable

universe all the way back as far as you can go you eventually get to a point

where you don't have a cause. At some point you run out of causes. Aquinas

proposed that that's where we see God. That's God. In other words God is the

first cause. He caused according to his divine will and then every effect after

that occurs. That also means that God is the first cause meaning that he is the

uncaused. We see what I'm saying with that. Nothing caused God. Nothing

impacted upon him to affect his existence. He just simply is there. He is

the uncaused and he's the first cause of every other effect afterwards. And that

continues through to today and this is this is carried out in Scripture. We read

from a for example Psalm chapter 90 and verse 2. Before the mountains were

Psalms 90 · chapter mention

brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to

everlasting you are God. That is the psalmist's way of describing God as the

first initiator of everything else that we see. Before anything was formed you

were there and not just that you were there but from way back when until way

back until way forward there. This means that as we read Genesis chapter 1 and

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

verse 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth we are not reading

about God's beginning and we shouldn't try to read into that because Moses

doesn't give us that and neither does God. God doesn't take any efforts at

explaining his pre-existence. He just is or he as he would say it I am. I just am.

Rather what we are reading from Genesis chapter 1 in verse 1 is how God inspired

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Moses to record the beginning of that history which uniquely pertains to man,

to mankind. Because in this account in the beginning we already see God that

means that God pre-exists the beginning. Go follow it all the way back and you

find God. He's already there.

Genesis 1 1 if you and I are to want to consider the beginning of us and mankind's

history and mankind's beginning and mankind's everything else we would be

foolish to exclude this very powerful best opening line in literature because

this right here is not talking about God in terms of the beginnings but about

everything that we know and can observe and can experience and can hope in and

can claim and can accept and grasp and receive and touch and smell you name it.

It starts with this record and right at the very beginning God has already been

and I love that. I love thinking that God doesn't have a beginning because

everything that we know has a beginning and an end and God does not. I also don't

lose any sleep over trying to figure it out. I don't lose any sleep over that.

What we also find here our second main point that that is extremely crucial to

our from the beginning idea is not just that God is there and that he exists and

he pre-exists and he began things but that that beginning of things is unique

to the God of heaven because what we read in Genesis 1 1 is that God doesn't

just simply exist and he doesn't just simply make he creates and why why do I

draw that distinction why is it necessary to draw the distinction in

Hebrew we have two words for making things one is granted to humans so that's

like humans and God that's making building fashioning shaping if you cut

down a tree and shave it down and make planks and take those planks and build a

table you have made a table that's the verb you would use in the Hebrew it's

the verb that is used when God causes Adam to fall asleep and takes the rib

and makes Eve out of that rib that is a building a fashioning a shaping from

something into something else there is one verb though that is only credited to

God bara that is different than making that is different than building that is

creating that is the full understanding that God does not require material to

then cause or to have more come out of creating bara is only given to God you

and I cannot create now we use that word but in the biblical sense we cannot

create we can imagine and and make something but we cannot imagine and then

it's there we cannot imagine and speak it and it happens we cannot will

ourselves upon something and then it appears God can and that is a very

awesome distinction when God creates God does something that cannot be given to

anything else and it separates him from other claimed gods you can find this in

the structure and you're just gonna have to forgive me I'm gonna be a little bit

of a Hebrew nerd for just a moment that was my favorite of that was one of my

favorite subjects in my in my undergrad I learned I took three semesters worth of

it and then I taught it for two years and then I did teaching assistant with an

Old Testament professor who taught me the Hebrew and he's got I believe two

PhDs in ancient writings and so on so I liked it I asked a lot of questions

about it I kind of ate it up it's a little bit where I kind of go into a

little bit of a literary nerd it was the first verse that I memorized in Hebrew

b'reishit bara Elohim et ha-shemayim v'et ha'aretz that's Genesis 1 1 all

right I like it it rolls off the tongue very beautifully to me what we need to

see here and this is how in the Hebrew we get a couple of incredible things

that don't really come clear in the English one the use of the word Elohim

the word Elohim is the most used name for God in the Old Testament we have L

Eloah and Elohim these are the generic God or gods when you come across them

in your Bible Elohim is used more than two thousand seven hundred and fifty

times and it is used interchangeably with the God of heaven and the other

gods lowercase G that the Bible talks about as a plural and this is important

Elohim is a plural word we can think of you know a person or people people is

the plural L is singular Elohim is plural okay as the plural it can refer to

pagan deities in which case the Bible translates it lowercase G gods and we

can think of the commandment in Exodus 20 verse 3 that says you shall have no

Exodus 20:3

other gods before me that's Elohim okay it can also refer to the God of Israel

well how do we draw the distinction one when the God when Elohim is used with

the God of Israel you have a plural word paired with a singular verb and a little

into the grammar they don't do that in Hebrew if it's plural one the other one's

plural if it's singular one the other one's singular so it would be like it

would be like this we is sitting in church we don't do that in English right

we are God would be a they is in church and that's why we can see this plural

with a singular verb bara the Greeks understood this in the in the

Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament they

use Hothos that's that's the singular word for God they understood that Moses

was not writing about the God of heaven in a in a plurality but in a singular

ness and the Greeks got that whoever translated it then those scholars what

we see if in this and this this is we're gonna we're gonna draw this together we

don't want to make something out of it that it's not the use of God here in the

plural is not a conversation on the Trinity at all not one bit the church

the understanding of the Trinity that triune in one person God didn't really

come about until the New Testament Christian era in the Old Testament there

is an idea of plurality with God but not trinity Ness with God does that make

sense what we're reading here is a very common practice in the Hebrew where the

plural it's called the Hebrew plural the Hebrew plural is speaking to the

grandness of God the largeness of God the vastness and the infinite power of

God plurality in the Hebrew especially in relation to God is size strength

awesomeness of God and that makes really good sense if we understand if we

accept that what we're reading is an account not on theological existence but

an account on creation the account on creation necessitates a grand and

powerful and mighty God it necessitates a God that is pre-existing and larger

than what he is about to do and in the Hebrew that comes through by using

pluralness it's a literary convention that reflects special reverence in other

words it is fair to say though that the creation account does imply that there's

plurality we see that the Spirit of God is mentioned in the next verse you go

farther on come let us make man in our image right so we have an

understanding that what it's not a single entity in this point but it's one

and not the other the regular appearance of Elohim rather than Adonai or Yahweh

the actual you know the name the special holy name of God is due to the

theological importance of this verse and that is as creator I don't know I

Yahweh is covenantal mostly in use God is creator creation extols God's

transcendence and the power of his spoken word so Elohim is used and when

Moses was writing this in the hills of Moab and God has inspired upon him I

believe maybe with this panoramic vision of this is happening and God is there

and things are spoken and it happens and that was already a time when you had

other cultures with other gods and to write it this way is to separate from to

sanctify to set apart as correct and holy and reverential the God of heaven

who created Barah the heavens and the earth and if God cannot create if God

cannot make something out of nothing that has very serious ramifications for

you and I because if it's from the beginning to the end what implications

does that have for us today well God as pre-existing creator is necessary for

salvation it's he this understanding is necessary for our salvation if you are a

cosmic accident then who cares what moral decisions you make or anybody else

makes if if all of what we have around here happened because the cosmos is

birthed at some point then really what does it matter if some genocidal maniac

decides to wipe out a race because according to that understanding of how

things came to be he would be correct the survival of the fittest if God's

pre-existence as creator didn't happen and we were all just kind of here or

God maybe started things but he didn't manage things then pure subjectivity

would also be correct and no one would know what right and wrong is your right

is as equal as my right and by that I don't mean rights I mean being right

being correct about something and if that's the case you can't have laws you

can't arrest people you can't stop murders you can't in fact you shouldn't

because you would be violating nature if you do that because there is nothing

that we observe in nature that actually tells us about morality issues or ethical

issues you don't really see that I can only come from a God who is apart from

nature he is not bound by what he is created and he is not infused into what

he has created you get rid of this pan pantheistic and panentheistic idea of

God's being in the chairs that we sit on because if that were the case y'all

should stand up that would be a little rude to God God is apart from what he's

created and he is at the beginning but how what does this mean in terms of our

salvation each one of us like we started with have a spiritual aspect to us God

desires us to search him out to find the uncaused God you need to find God at the

beginning of all of your considerations because without that beginning without

finding God you don't have hope beyond what we currently have if you can go

back through your whole life and you can go back through the many different

options and you haven't found God then you might as well stop searching and you

might as well give up now the fact that God is already in the beginning and the

fact that God creates out of nothing he's the only one who can do that means

that at some point in your life go back through all the mistakes that you have

made go back through all the good things you have done go go as go wherever you

need to kind of search and look and when you find God he is already there waiting

for you to find him and if he's already there in the beginning before you've

made a mess of things then he can also barah in your life the Bible speaks

clear create in me a clean heart that creating can only happen by a God who

knew you before the earth was formed who was there before the earth was formed

and before your parents ever found each other you have to find God to find

salvation and you have to find a God who can completely fix you root and core at

the beginning of you to actually have victory over sin since sin entered into

this world we understand we firmly believe the Bible teaches it's not just

actions it's a part of us we have that nature and only the God who can create

nature out of nothing can can can clean out and overcome and strengthen and save

from a nature that we can't shape or or affect on our own we cannot cause upon

our sinful nature God can your salvation depends on you discovering the God who

pre-exists creation who wants to reveal himself to you are you searching for him

are you looking have you found him are you hanging on to him the theory that

God did not create matter when he brought the world into existence is

without foundation and the formation of our world God was not indebted to

pre-existing matter on the contrary all things material or spiritual stood up

before the Lord of Jehovah at his voice and were created for his own purpose the

heavens and all the host of them the earth and all things they're in are not

only the work of his hand they came into existence by the breath of his mouth and

so when Jesus claims that all of heaven and earth has been given to him all of

a sudden that means that he is your Lord and Savior he is your creator in your

life and whatever you're struggling with he can burrow in you what you need for

salvation for eternity that reshaped and remade nature that we all have it's also

very closely connected to salvation because and we could all say this with

me we are saved by grace through faith and our Lord Jesus Christ if you read

Hebrews 11 3 we also read this through faith we understand that the worlds were

framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things

which do appear if you are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and

by faith we accept what Genesis 1 1 is saying then by faith that creation

account carries you into your Savior experience and we all need that my

friends we all need that the psalmist writes this by the word of the Lord were

the heavens made and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth he spake

and it was done he commanded and it stood fast and what am I compared to

the galaxies out there if he can do all of that I can claim he can do it in my

life as well I want to encourage you today from the beginning to the end God

is there from the beginning to the end God creates and he recreates and for his

most loved creation on this planet he will recreate you as many times as you

go to him it is not a one-and-done from the beginning to the end God is

interested in his creation and from the beginning to the end he's going to keep

creating on us and in us and and with us until ultimately in the end we get to

observe a new creation of the heavens and the earth I am looking forward to it I

am looking forward to our consideration of God from the beginning to the end and

its implications for us I encourage you today as you are thinking about what you

might do in this new year and the last time I was here we talked about

resolutions and kind of how to make goals I would encourage you today in

fact not not I who am I don't do it because of me God implores you to seek

him this year if you're going to make a goal of anything this year if you're

going to choose a literary anything this year and when there are great books out

there it's not pastor Aaron who am I I'm dust God implores you I have revealed

myself to you I have shaped and created everything find me don't find me ten

years from now start searching and find me today begin with the best literary

work the Bible and seek he who created you that is the best goal the best

beginning leading to the best end that you could ever hope or ask for let's

pray heavenly father we thank you again that you revealed yourself to us we

thank you that in your divine will and purpose you saw fit to not leave this

corner of your universe empty and stagnant and in chaos we thank you that

in your divine will you spoke and were present at some point in the beginning

and before the beginning and in your infinite wisdom and your infinite love

you are not satisfied with the void you desired to create to call into existence

to bring about this world and the heavens and all that we not only know

but because of your love we get to enjoy but all of that would be for naught if

we didn't find you so I pray that according to your will you would reveal

yourself to us in a powerful and personal way today and tomorrow and all

the way to the end when you come to take us finally home Lord I pray that your

Holy Spirit would impress upon us to seek after you that your Holy Spirit

would guide us as we seek that he would protect us from distractions and

confusion I pray that your Holy Spirit would bless us with the power necessary

to overcome our stumbling blocks and I pray that you would pour out grace and

faith into our lives that we might seek after you believe in you and claim you

as our own so that because we accept that you have claimed us as your own or

I thank you for hearing our prayer please go with us today we pray amen