Advent | Week 2

If you have your Bible, you can open just turn a couple of pages

as you open that thing to Genesis chapter one.

We're not going to go real real far into the pages this morning.

We're going to look at Genesis chapter 1, and we're going to

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

continue in our Advent series which we started last week.

The I guess the theme of advent is to to look at the coming of

Christ, always, it's to see that first coming of Jesus Christ, as

we Dissipate his second coming and we'll get a great

opportunity that this morning as we finish out the day today with

the Lord's Supper here in a little bit.

But again I want to take us back into who is God the last week we

began by just looking at the Triune God that he is Triune.

We looked at some of the things that that meant one of the

things that we said or kind of the overarching thing we said is

that he is self-existent all sufficient and Triune and we

looked at what those things mean.

And so that's going to bring it's going to shed some lights

on the significance of the Incarnation that Jesus Christ

has come. It's going to help us to

understand that a bit more fully this week that I want to focus

on the overflowing love of God, the overflowing love of God next

week. We're going to look at how he's

a God and like all others, but this week we're going to look at

the overflowing love of God. What you'll actually parallel

really well to this morning Sunday school lessons.

So we're just going to kind of add to To some of the things we

that were set in it, which was not planned, but worked out

really nicely. So, Let's see.

Me say a couple more things and I'll pray for us for we get

rolling as we're thinking about God.

We want to know who is he, who is God, as we ask those

questions, wonder, what is this? God like, If he's the Creator,

why does he creates? Why is he interested in

Redemption at all? Is this Christian God like other

gods are Allah and Buddha and various other gods throughout

time and history. Are they all the same as the

Christian God just with different names or is our God

different? And if so what separates him

from them, They're all really good questions and someone will

get answered more as we go through the series.

But the Bible reveals a God who is radically different than

other gods. He's unlike all other gods are

God is eternally Triune. He's the creator of everyone and

everything. And the thing that I want you to

see today, if you're taking notes, you can write this down

at the top. Is that the overflowing love of

God is the beginning of creation?

It's what is the foundation of creation.

As the overflowing love of God, let me pray for us before we

dive into this today. Heavenly Father, we we praise

you and we're in all of you and it's wonderful that we've sung

songs this morning. That glorify your name because

as we approach the study of you father, we need our hearts to be

in the right place. Lord help us to.

I'll be humble today as we approached you.

Help us to Revere your name. Father, we come to you, not

wanting to accuse you of anything, not wanting to assume

anything about you, but we come to you wanting to discover

exactly who you are. And so Lord, these things are

above me. My words will fail.

My thoughts will be incomplete. God, you transcend all things.

And yet father what we see in the Advent is that you come to

us, you are near to us. You are unlike us.

And yet, you are near to us. And so father, we worship you

today, we honor you today and we approach your word today wanting

to learn from you about you. Lord, would you help us to do

that today? Would you be near to us?

Would you illuminate the scriptures today by your Holy

Spirit up our hearts to love you, help our desires before you

help us father to Delight in you today.

In Christ's name, we pray. Amen.

So I want to talk to you today. About how God's love is not

something that happened at creation, but creation is the

Overflow of God's love. In Genesis 1:1, what we read

Genesis 1:1

about God is that in the beginning, God in the beginning,

God created the heavens and the earth and the teaches us

something immediately. And those first four words of

scripture. About God.

And that. Is that in the beginning?

God. It means that God existed.

before the beginning, before the beginning of the universe,

before the beginning of all things, before the creation of

all things God was Existed before those things.

And so, One of the questions that comes to mind for us.

I think, at times as well, what was God doing?

Maybe you've never thought of question before.

But one question that comes at comes to the Forefront.

When you read that God was in the beginning, is what is he up

to? What is the godhead doing in

those moments? Well, the eternally Triune God,

which will see more about even today than what we saw last week

because you, you can't talk about God without talking about

the Trinity. This eternally Triune God, the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, they were enjoying one

another. They were in fellowship with one

another, they were loving one. Another, there was Fellowship

within the godhead. They knew one another their

communing with one another. That the father was loving the

son, through the Holy Spirit. Just as he does today, the sun

was loving the father and returned through the Holy

Spirit, just as he does now. In John 17.

Jesus Christ. Praise this to the father in

chapter and verse 5 of John 17, he says and now father glorify

me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before

the world existed. So Christ is now saying

something about his deity. That he existed with the father

before the world existed in the beginning was God.

In verse 24. Jesus goes on and his prayer

there in the high Priestly prayer of John 17.

He says, father I desire that they also talking about his

disciples and those who would come after them you and I, I

desire that they also Those whom you have given me may be with me

where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you

loved me before the foundation of the world.

So Christ had the glory of the father before the foundation of

the world and he had the love of the father before the foundation

of the world, there was communion within the godhead.

And so Jesus reveals the fatherly love of God, he shows

us that God, the father is a father because he loves Jesus

baptism captures. The nature of this.

So we see the Triune God in action and it helps us to

understand what their relationship is like before the

foundation of the world and Luke 3:21 through 22.

Luke 3:21–22

We have Luke's written accounts of the baptism of Christ.

He says now when all the people were baptized and Jesus also had

been baptized and was praying. The heavens were opened and the

Holy Spirit. Descended on him in bodily form,

like a dove and a voice Came From Heaven.

You are my beloved Son with you. I am.

Well pleased you're my beloved Son with you.

I am. Well pleased.

So we might think of God is first and foremost, a Creator or

ruler, but we would be, we would be wrong to do that.

We might. We might think of him as

something else that he's just God, and whatever that means

that he's Lord. But first and foremost, what we

learn is that He's a father, he's a father who loves his son

and he pours out the spirit of Love on the Sonny's, for pours

out the spirit of life on the Sun, from eternity, past to

Eternity future, this will be the way it is.

It's a wonderful little book delighting in the Trinity to

talks about these things and I go back to it over.

And again, as I'm talking with you guys, because it's such a

great read. But Michael Reaves writes this.

He says, since God is before all things a father and not

primarily Creator, or Ruler all his ways are beautifully.

Fatherly. It's not that this God does you

know quote-unquote does being a father as like a day job.

Reeves says only to kick back in the evenings as plain old God.

It's not that he has a nice blob of fatherly icing on top.

He is father What reads the signs that through and through.

He's a father all the way down to the Core.

Reeves continues. That's all that he does.

He does his father. That is who he is.

He creates his father and he rules his father.

And that means the way he rules over creation is most unlike the

way any other God would rule over creation He's a father.

And what we see with God is that when he rules his creation, he

does it as a kind a loving, a benevolence father and he

doesn't so that will be moved and Delight of him.

That will be moved deep within in the light of his providential

plans in our life that whatever he gives to us.

We Delight in the father. Because we know that what the

father orders is good. It's for our good, it's for his

glory. So the father is called a father

because he is a father and what does the father do?

Well a father is someone who gives life a father produces

children and before the foundation of the world God was

eternally a father. This is core to understanding

God that that means that he is inherently as a father outgoing.

He Is life-giving, We can honestly say that he is a

life-giving God. It didn't give life for the

first time when he decided to create.

From eternity, he has been life-giving.

First John four reveals this kind of God for us.

In verse 7, the Apostle John writes, beloved let us love one.

Another for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born

of God and knows, God, anyone who does not love, does not

know, God, because God is love. We can say that God is all sorts

of other attributes and we would be right.

We listed some of these on the Whiteboard last week that got

us. Holy that God is perfect.

God is just, God is righteous. There's no lack of anything in

God. God has all things, right?

He's all powerful. He's all knowing, he's all

present, all of these things would be part of the attributes

of God. But none of these attributes

exist apart from one another you are he is fully loving and he's

all-powerful his all power is love.

He will not be all-powerful apart from Love.

He will not be loving apart from his power that makes sense.

They're all enter, they're intertwined, they enter link,

they're connected to one another, all of his attributes,

we don't separate separate them, we don't segregate them out.

We don't list some here like God is loving, but he's also angry.

Well, well, anger comes from the love of God, it comes from his

righteousness that there is justice that must be rendered.

There is judgments that must be given and that's a part of the

love of God. And so the Apostle John is

saying that God is so profoundly loving that.

You simply cannot know. God, without also becoming love

it. The Bible here is saying that

there is no such thing as a as a Christian, a pro client

self-proclaimed Christian who is not loving.

It doesn't mean that he's not working on his love and the way

that he loves others, even the way that he loves God.

It just means that there will be evidence of God's love.

In his life. If God is truly alive in him.

Amen. We Must Be Love.

And so, God is loving, John goes on to explain there in chapter 4

first. John chapter 4, how we know that

1 John 4 · chapter mention

God is loving. He says, this in verse 9, just

two verses later, he says in this, the love of God was made

manifest Among Us. That God sent his only son into

the world so that we might live through him.

For the love of God is made manifest through the giving of

the Son of God. That's one of the clearest

pictures, we have of the love of God.

Now, other clear pictures of the love of God, our creation, the

fact that God creates the fact that God gives to us a world to

live in that he gives us life and breath and that he with

holds evil from us and that he gives good to us.

But all of these things are evidence, is many of these are

just common Grace's whether you're a Believer and unbeliever

your experience. In the love of God.

But as a Believer, you come to experience the love of God

through Christ Jesus, our lord and that love takes on new life.

It goes down much deeper than just observing creation, just

looking into the world that you live.

You now become loving because you are transformed.

You are made new, you're a new creation scripture says, so

before anything else. This father, who is loves the

father, who sends his son. And to be the father means to

love to give out life before anything else.

This God for all eternity was loving, he was giving life He's

giving life to his son, who was delighting in his son and so

Above All Else. God is love.

As Michael Reeves says he, he could not not love.

It's impossible for God to not love.

Because he has a son because he is Triune because he has known

relationship from the beginning of all time.

Well before that even Thomas for us, he's outside of that.

If he did not love, he would not be a father.

Adding some things here about the spirit. particularly that he

is a his purpose in the godhead that the way the father makes

his love known is through his spirit.

Romans 5:5 says that God's love has been poured into our hearts

Romans 5:5

through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

This is what I meant a moment ago when I was talking about,

there's a deeper understanding of a love of God because the

Holy Spirit has made God's love known to you as God has poured,

the Holy Spirit into us. It's through this giving.

It's through giving his son and the spirit that the father

declares his love for the son. The lighting in the Trinity

again, read his rights. He says it is all deeply

personal that the spirit stirs up, the light of the father, in

the sun and the Delight of the Sun in the father, in flaming

their love and so binding them together in The Fellowship of

the Holy Spirit, which we read about in 2nd Corinthians, 13:14

will be the The final passage of this Advent series, he makes the

Father's. Love known to the Sun.

And it causes the sun to cry Abba Father, which is something

that he does for us. Also, according to Romans, 8 and

Galatians 4, that we've received the spirit of adoption as Sons

Sons, who now cry Abba Father. None of this means that the

spirit is merely an impersonal Divine Force.

Remember we said that the holy spirit is one of the persons of

the essence of God. He's one of the one of the

three, right? There's one Essence, three

persons. The holy spirit is the third

member of the Trinity. And as a person he speaks and he

sins acts 13, we see him speaking and sending he chooses

and Acts 20. He teaches in John 14, he gives

and Isaiah 63, he can be lied to and tested.

In Acts 5, he can be resisted and that 7, he can be grieved

and Isaiah 63, and Ephesians 4. He can be blasphemed and Matthew

12 and every way he is presented alongside the father and the son

as a person in the godhead and maybe this is best seen in the

Great Commission, which we looked at last week where Jesus

says go and make disciples baptizing them in the name of

the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. again, I say

that God is eternally Triune and he is there for eternally,

loving And the separates him from all other gods.

Now, in Genesis 1:1 through to, we begin to see how the godhead

Genesis 1:1

was working. In the beginning, God created

the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and

void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit

of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

So the way that the father and the son and the spirit related

at Jesus Jesus baptism wasn't a one-time event, it looks a lot

like Genesis 11 through 20 We see them all in action.

Reeves explains this further. He says, we see the spirit

hovered Dove like over the waters.

Just as he did at the baptism. The spirit would go on to send

out Christ into the lifeless Wilderness.

So, in Genesis 1, the spirit appears as the power by which

God's word goes out into the lifeless void.

In the beginning, God creates by his word, the word that would

later become flesh as seen in John chapter 1 verses 1 through

John 1:1–3

3 and he does. So by sending out his word and

the power of His Spirit or breath, This is how we see.

That they're linked. So, what we're saying is that,

God the father, and God the son, and God, the Holy Spirit work

together in Perfect Harmony, and creating the heavens and the

Earth. That and the crown jewel of

creation which is Humanity images.

The Triune God perfectly Genesis 1:27, we read that he created

Genesis 1:27

them in his own image and likeness he created them male

and female, he created them. And so God creates man from the

dust of the ground, breathe life into his nostrils, by his own

breath, He's loving and life-giving.

And then God creates the woman from the side of man.

If you remember last week I talked about how you can't, you

really can't draw the Trinity. You really can't use an analogy

for the Trinity like water or a person, and how he has three

different roles that those get into Aris.

He's like modalism, and, and others, but Reeves, and his book

pointed out, one that I had never heard before that.

I think works really well. He says that Eve is a person

distinct from Adam and so he's going back to Creation to help,

explain the Trinity Eve's a person, distinct from Adam, yet

she has all her life and being from Adam and Corinthians.

We read that. But I want you to understand

that the head of every man is Christ.

The head of a wife has her husband and the head of Christ

is God. And so back to read this quote,

he says Eve is a person distinct from Adam yet she has all her

life and being from Adam, she comes from his side.

She is bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh and his one

with him in the flesh according to Genesis chapter 2.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

Now, this reflects a personal God, a son who is distinct from

his father and yet who is of the very being of the father and who

is eternally one with him in. Spirits.

So, maybe marriage is the best analogy we have for the Trinity

at least Christian marriage. So then it's out of the Overflow

of loving fellowship with the Sun that causes God, to create

the heavens and the Earth. what I'm wanting you to see is that

as I said last week, that God has no, there's no lack in God,

there's no need in God, there's no want, and God God does not

create because he wants something that he's missing.

He doesn't create so that he might be complete because he

Lacks. He doesn't create to fill some

need that the godhead wasn't fulfilling.

As though he's missing something, he creates out of

love which bubbles forth like a fountain head filling Creation

With His glory. Paul writes again in Colossians

Colossians 1:15–16

1:15 through 16, he is the image of the invisible.

God talking about Christ, the firstborn of all creation,

though, this is not mean that God created Jesus, which is the

the old thing that cause Santa Claus to punch areas over,

right? God has not created Christ.

True story for but what it means is that Christ, receives all the

blessings of the firstborn that everything that is, the Father's

is his, he's the firstborn of all creation, It All Belongs to

him. Listen, we know this, because

Paul goes on to say, for by him, talking about Christ, all things

were created in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible,

whether Thrones, or dominions or rulers or authorities, he's all

things were created through him and for him, Everything exists

to glorify God, especially God, the son.

Creation is God's gift to his son that the son is the goal of

creation. He is the beginning and the end

of creation creation is expression of God's love for his

son. It all exists for him.

And so this means that you exist for God, God does not exist for

you. God does not tend to all of your

wants and all of your needs because he is your Santa Claus.

God is the god of Heaven and Earth.

He's the creator of all things. Everything exists to glorify his

name. And so you exist to glorify the

name of God. And you will glorify the name of

God either by your obedience or by your Disobedience because

your Disobedience will be judged rightly in the last day.

And so God will receive glory for his judgments.

Your obedience will be judged rightly.

And so God will receive Glory, because you and I are only

obedience, because of the righteousness of Christ Jesus,

As we possess faith in him. As we trust him for our

obedience, as we trust him to absolve our Disobedience, has

God receives the glory. In this, we exist for him, he

does not exist for us. Reeves has just kind of a

thought experiment, he concludes with and chapter 2, he says.

So next time you look up at the Sun, next time you look up at

the Sun, the moon and the stars and you wonder Remember, they

are there because God loves because the Father's Love For

The Sunburst out. That it might be enjoyed by many

that you. And I might know the love of God

and they remain there only because God does not stop.

Loving. He is an attentive father who

numbers every hair on our heads for whom the fall of every

Sparrow matters. There's none.

There's not a sparrow that falls apart from the word of God.

Apart from his Providence. And Out of Love, he upholds all

things through his son and breathes out Natural Life on all

through his spirit. Research continues and not only

is God's joyful abundant spreading goodness.

The very reason for creation the love and the goodness of the

Triune. God is the source of all love

and goodness. It's where we come to know what

is truly good. What is truly loving is in God.

It's not a part from him. It's in him.

Reeves goes on to quote, John Owen.

Who wrote that the Father's Love For the son, is the Fountain and

the Prototype of all love and all love.

And the creation was introduced from this Fountain to give a

shadow in a resemblance of it. Reeves goes on to say, indeed

the Triune God Is the Love behind all love.

He's the life behind all life, he's the music behind all music.

He's the beauty behind all Beauty and he is the joy behind

all joy. Comes from him and through him

and it exists to him. And other words in the Triune

God is a God. We can hardly enjoy.

It's a God, we can know. It's a God, we can come to

fellowship with commune with. It's a God, we can Delight in

and we do that through his creation.

One of the ways that we enjoy God Is by enjoying the things

that he has created. It's enjoying the life that you

have been given its spending your life and worship to God or

as Romans, 12 puts it to live your life, to give your life as

a living sacrifice for God. It's to understand that we exist

for his glory and so we must describe all glory and praise to

him in the way that we live. So how do we know that God loves

us? Well, it's John Piper wrote.

He said God loves us, mainly by giving us himself.

It's how we know that God loves us because he gives us himself.

If God were not loving, he would not give us himself because he's

the all satisfied. Satisfying, he's all sufficient,

he self-existent he's the only thing that is able to satisfy

your desires. Your wants the only thing that

can satisfy your needs, he gives us himself and all that he is

for us in Jesus Christ. Papa goes on to say.

Jesus loves us mainly by giving us himself and all that God is

for us in him. And this is what John 3:16 is

John 3:16

showing us, right? It's Jesus Christ.

Is in this conversation with Nicodemus about how to be saved,

how to be born again, what it takes to be righteous.

Jesus says in John 3:16 for God. So loved the world that he gave

John 3:16

his only son that whoever believes in him should not

perish, but have eternal life. And what is eternal life?

Well, Jesus defines it in John 17:3.

John 17:3

He says this is eternal life that they know you the only true

God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent So, we turn a life.

Depends on God, revealing himself to us.

Eternal life. Depends on God.

Revealing his son to us. Praise God.

That he has done both. He's revealed himself not only

naturally in creation, but specially in his word, we can

know God. He's revealed the son,

physically the sun walked on Earth.

The sun live, the life that we can't live.

The sun was a the radiance of the glory of God.

He was a perfect imprint of God's nature.

He was God, and he was man. so next week, we'll talk more about

what that means. Eternal life then is to know the

father through his son by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But we can only know and love the father.

The way that know the father is to is to come to him through

faith in his son. Who was given as a payment for

our sins. It's the place your faith in

Jesus Christ for the Forgiveness of your sins.

That you come to know the father that God has revealed to you.

In Ephesians 2, there's this Bleak picture painted of mankind

that he is dead in his trespasses and sins.

And then, in verse 4, we read this, but God being rich in

Mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive

together. With Christ by Grace, you have

been saved and he raised us up with him and seated us with him

in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

So that in the coming ages he might show he's still showing

these are the Mean ages, the age to come even he might show the

immeasurable Riches of his grace and kindness toward us in

Christ. Jesus, for by Grace, you have

been saved through faith and this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God. Not a result of works so that no

one may boast. And then in verse 10, Paul

writes he says, for we are his workmanship.

Talking about you as a Believer. Now you who have been saved by

the grace of God you were now his workmanship created in

Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand

that we should walk in them. Wow.

And so what we see is a very trinitarian view of salvation,

but the Father, the Son, and the spirit, pour their Love On Us in

creation. And then again and a re-creation

of those who believe in Christ a new creation that you become

altogether, new altogether, different And that re-creation

undoes the Brokenness of the Fall, it reverses the curse of

sin and death that are on your life because of the fall.

And you have new life, God has created in you new life, you

have been born again. By the grace of God.

And so we see that the overflowing love of God is the

beginning of creation. It's the beginning of it both.

Physical creation and spiritual rebirth.

Are founded on the love of God. A man that's dependent upon us.

if there's anybody in here today, who is an unbeliever in

Jesus Christ, You're unsure, you're not following him.

Or maybe you have a different stripe of unbelief.

The kind of unbelief that says well I believe that Jesus

existed, I believe there is a God but I don't follow him.

There's no fruit of Salvation in my life.

And I implore you today on behalf of the loving father, and

on behalf of his son, Jesus Christ to be reconciled to God

through faith and the death and the resurrection of Jesus

Christ. Trust God, for the Forgiveness

of your sins. Find New Life in him.

God is Not distant from you. He's not far off from you.

He is near to those who were humbled by their sins near to

those who are in need of a savior.

And so all that you need to bring to God today.

If you want to quote unquote, bring something to him, is to

bring to him your sin. That you might be saved today.

I know that many of you in here. Are genuine Believers followers

of Christ Jesus. No doubt wrestling with the

flesh day in and day out. No doubt struggling with sins,

but saved by the grace of God. Seeking to honor the father and

the Son, and the Holy Spirit, living your life.

The glorify him. I want you today to reflect on

the God who saved you, from your sins.

The God Who created all things out of love for his son, The God

Who came to us in his son, The God, Who died for our sins.

Through his son, reflect on The God, Who redeems us and makes us

Sons and Daughters. Who cry, Abba, Father, The God

Who makes us Eternal co-heirs with Jesus Christ, by his

salvation come to him today. Reflect on him today, brothers

and sisters, remember him. For your edification.

I have Romans 8 15, through 17 for you did not receive the

spirit of Slavery to fall back into fear but you have received

the spirit of adoption as Sons by whom we cry Abba, Father, the

spirit himself Bears, witness with our spirit that we are

children of God. And if children then heirs Heirs

of God and fellow heirs with Christ Jesus provided that we

suffer With him, in order that we may also be glorified with

him. Amen.

If you were to run this race. Well if you're to finish this

race well it'll be because you fix your eyes on Christ Jesus

and you never looked back. Amen.

Did you say? Amen.

Did you say?