In the Beginning: Who is God? Who am I? (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

The first lesson starts at the very beginning in the book of Genesis, chapter one.

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.

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

And God saw that the light was good.

And God separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

And there was evening and there was morning the first day.

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

And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse.

And it was so.

And God called the expanse heaven.

And there was evening and there was morning the second day.

And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.

And it was so.

God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas.

And God saw that it was good.

And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth.

And it was so.

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.

And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.

And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

And it was so.

And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.

So God created the great sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.

And there was evening, and there was morning.

The fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.

And it was so.

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God he created him.

Male and female he created them.

And God blessed them.

And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit.

You shall have them for food.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

And it was so.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.

For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we can only be here for one reason, and that's because you've invited us to come and to experience rest for our souls.

So whatever burdens we bring with us today, give us grace to lay them at your feet.

Lord, would you speak your light and life-giving word to us again?

Enliven us.

Be gentle with us.

And we pray, Lord, that you would reveal yourself to us anew.

It's in your precious name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So there are few things in life I find more stressful than being late for a movie.

You don't want to drive on the road when I'm late for a movie.

I tend to weave to make it there as quickly as I can.

We've all had the experience of coming into a movie late, or maybe starting a coming into a movie halfway through, let's put it that way.

You know, maybe we fell asleep on the plane, or maybe our friend started the movie before we got there.

There's always one question we have or a friend has when they come into a movie late, and that's this.

What's going on?

Which is the most frustrating answer question you can ask someone who's stuck with the movie, of course, the whole way, but no, that's just me, I suppose.

But uh we know we know the stress or we know the confusion that comes with coming into the story late.

We don't, if a beginning has has been done effectively, then we should know what's going on, but we should also know who's involved, and we should have a sense of what's at stake.

So that we can take that through the plot of the story so that we get a sense of where all this is going.

If we can get a sense of what went wrong, then maybe we've got a sense of how it's going to be made right.

And I think what's true in our experience is true of Scripture.

I think very often we can start somewhere halfway through the story.

And don't get me wrong, it's really important.

Everything, of course, culminates in the life and ministry in the cross and resurrection of Christ.

Of course, we should go to Jesus.

But if all we see is the four gospels, or if that's the only place we hang out, then maybe we're going to miss where everything came from.

Maybe we're going to miss where everything's going.

If we don't catch the beginning, we might miss what's really going on and where all things are headed by God's mercy and grace.

Bible scholars of all sorts have recognized that there's something unique about Genesis 1 to 11.

Genesis 12 to 50 zooms in on God's saving activity with Abraham and his descendants, and the rest of the Old Testament describes God's saving activity through their descendants, the people of Israel.

But Genesis 1 to 11 deals with the origins of the world, of creation, of all nations, of all people, and it describes for us God's saving activity, his desire for the whole of the cosmos that you and I occupy.

It gives us some fundamental questions to ask.

What's going on?

Who's involved?

What's at stake?

These are questions fundamental to our lives that we find answers for right here in Genesis 1 to 11.

So as we start our study, I want to acknowledge that Genesis 1 to 11 raises a lot of questions for us.

And a lot of those questions relate to science and history and how do these things match up with Scripture.

And don't get me wrong, those are important questions to ask, and we should discuss those.

But if those are the only questions we're asking, then we're going to miss some of the important theological affirmations that Genesis 1 to 11 wants to make.

We're going to miss what the text wants to say to us on the text's terms.

So what I want to propose for our study is that we enter into the text on the text terms by paying attention to the questions that the text is raising and by paying attention to the answers that it gives.

Here's what I think Genesis chapter 1, indeed, what Genesis 1 to 11 is saying to us.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

It's saying that God's desire for the whole of creation is to flourish.

God's desire for the whole of creation is to flourish, to experience life abundant, life to the full.

I wonder if flourishing is how we think of God's motives in Scripture.

I wonder if we took a survey of average Canadian sitting in the pew today.

What's God's desire for us?

I wonder if we'd hear answers like, well, God's desire for us is to believe in him.

Or God's desire for us is to do his commandments.

And those things are true, of course, but they're true only insofar as they point us towards the flourishing He desires for us.

He desires you and I to have life and life abundant, even today, even right now.

And this is what Genesis chapter one wants us to know that God's desire for the whole of creation is to flourish.

And we know this because Genesis chapter 1 presents us with two very important questions, with two very important answers.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Those questions are this number one, who is God?

And number two, who am I?

Who is God and who am I?

Two questions that we're going to solve in about 10 minutes.

Who is God and who am I?

I think what we want to do is wrestle with these questions such that we get a sense, a foundation of where all of Scripture is going to go after this and where it's going to end up.

Who is God is the first question that we want to ask.

If you have your Bible with you, let's turn to probably page one.

Chapter 1, verse 1 of the very first book in the Bible.

And we're going to look at our reading today.

The first question we want to ask is: who is God?

If we have a quick skim of verses 1 to 25, we're going to discover a couple of things.

Verses 1 to 2 introduce us to the Creator God in the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth.

And 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, no CV for God in the preface, like he's not giving us his resume.

It's a simple statement, isn't it?

God created the heavens and the earth.

We're going to come to know this God by his actions in creation.

So, we see God, we see God's word, and we meet God's Spirit hovering over the waters, as it were.

And the picture of these primordial waters, this creation that's without form and void is something of a created world that's teetering on the brink of chaos.

Something like that.

It is and it isn't fully yet.

That's something like what Genesis 1 and 2 is describing.

And so for the rest of the verses that follow, God is going to bring order and life to this otherwise formless and void creation.

Days 1 to 3, God gives form to what's formless by separating.

He makes good separations between light and darkness, between the sky and the depths, between earth and sea.

And then in days four to six, he fills those things with celestial bodies, with birds and with fish, and with vegetation of all sorts, and cattle, and indeed human beings, and then God kind of compliments his own work, but he's entitled to do that, isn't he?

This is good.

And he's not just giving himself an A plus, he is expressing his delight.

God is delighted to create.

God is delighted to speak creation into being.

This is good, life-giving, excellent.

So already we should catch a few important affirmations about who this God is.

Number one, this God, this creator God, is transcendent.

This God is wholly distinct from his creation.

And this stands in really important contrast to the paganism that surrounded ancient Israel.

Pagans that surrounded ancient Israel understood that the divine, that deity, in some way corresponded, or, or let's say this, it was that the deity is either synonymous or somehow bound up together inextricably from the material world around us.

Okay, so what that meant is idols were never just about the wood or the stone they were made in.

In some way, this divine being or energy is channeled through this object, through this sacred object.

And what Genesis 1 is saying is that is not the case.

That God is not somehow defined by his creation, but quite the reverse, creation finds its being in God, not God in the being of creation.

Does that make sense?

That's a really important distinction to make.

And it's an important distinction to make because this ancient thinking is still well and alive in Canada in 2023, that God somehow finds his being in creation, or the divine somehow finds subsistence in creation.

The small town that Port Perry is, and we are something of a small town, we have at my last count three crystal shops.

That's a pretty remarkable thing.

And yes, I am gonna riff on this just for a little bit.

Because I want us to catch that when Genesis 1 makes an affirmation of who God is and how he relates to creation, it's trying to correct false notions of who God is, of misguided ideas of how God relates to creation.

So what I'm talking about is not just decorations, right?

We know what I'm talking about when we talk about these crystals, right?

They are understood to be channels of divine and healing energy that somehow the proper use of these crystals is going to cause life to flourish in a way that it wouldn't otherwise.

But what it's saying is the divine is in some way to be identified with this object.

And Genesis 1 says, no.

In him we live and move and find our being, not the other way around.

So God is as distinct from his creation as an artist is from their art.

Matter matters to God, certainly it does, but he is as distinct from creation as art is from its artist.

We're blessed right now by these beautiful works by our friend Blaine Rancourt.

And I hope we've taken time to admire them.

But if after the service you saw me talk into one of the paintings as if I was talking to Blaine himself, you'd start to wonder if there's a gas leak or something, right?

You'd wonder if I'm okay.

We know that there is a distinction.

Blaine has clearly poured so much of himself into these works, but they aren't Blaine himself, are they?

So too is God with his creation.

We can glean truths of God from creation, sure.

But creation itself is not God.

To try and get at God through creation is trying to get to God through that which is not God.

And Genesis 1 wants us to know that doesn't work.

Okay, this God, this creator God is transcendent.

He is distinct from creation.

Does that mean he's got nothing to do with creation?

He's just wound it up like a watch and sort of let it go?

No, this God, this transcendent God is deeply relational with his creation.

God relates to his creation freely, at his own initiative, by means of his word.

Did you notice that?

Verses 1 to 25, again and again and again, God speaks creation into being.

God said, God said, God said.

And then God addresses our first parents.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image.

Oh, God bless them.

God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply.

God said, God said, God said.

If you wonder why Christians make much of God's word, it's because our conviction goes as deep as Genesis 1.

God relates to his creation.

He relates himself to his creation by means of his word.

And this word that has brought creation into being, that animates and sustains it, is the word that is communicated to us through the prophets and through the apostles.

So if we want light and life in our own souls, we go not to material means to try and manipulate God, we go to God's Word, where He communicates Himself to us by the illumination of His Holy Spirit.

Christians make much of the Word for this reason because without God's word, we could not make sense of creation around us.

Try watching the next movie, a movie you haven't seen before, on mute without subtitles on.

You'll catch some things that are true in that movie.

You could probably make some educated guesss of who the hero is and who the villains are, but probably you'll mostly be lost.

Right?

Living in creation without God's word is like watching a movie on mute.

We'll glean some things, sure, but it's only our best guess at best.

God's word is what brings definition, brings clarity, and moves the story of salvation forward.

So here we meet our transcendent creator God who relates to his creation by his word.

This should lead us to ask a second question, which is a derivative question.

If this is who God is, who then am I?

And the good news is Genesis 1 tells us our identity and it tells us our vocation.

Let's look at verses 26 to 27 here.

Then God said, This is almost his soliloquy, God is talking to Himself in this moment.

Let us make man, let's make humanity in our image, after our likeness.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock, over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

In other words, let's let them be preeminent over all creation.

So God created man, humanity, in his own image.

In the image of God he created him.

Male and female, he created them.

Male and female.

God creates human beings to be inherently relational.

The word we the phrase we want to pay attention to is the image of God.

We see this twice in this passage.

Image of God.

The idea is that humanity as created is meant to correspond to God's character, to show forth something that is true of God, his glory, his goodness, to reflect that outwards into creation.

This word elsewhere gets translated as icon, and we're probably most familiar with the word icon from our desktop on our computer, right?

I've got a little icon of Google Chrome, and when I click on that icon, it's meant to open up this program, right?

If all that happened when I clicked on that icon is it took me to another icon of Google Chrome, then we'd know something's gone wrong with this icon.

Icons are meant to point beyond themselves.

Icons are meant to point to the real thing, to share in something of that realness.

I know this analogy breaks down pretty quickly, but bear with me here.

We creatures are meant to correspond to our delighted and good creator.

This is the image in which we are created.

And this is the foundation of our conviction as Christians that the vulnerable are not to be exploited.

That we all of us bear the image of God, that might doesn't equal right.

And we have to recognize that this is the exception and not the rule in human history.

This conviction that the vulnerable are meant to be protected and not exploited is a conviction that runs as deep as Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Why?

Because the vulnerable are just our image-bearers with equal dignity and value as those who are powerful.

And so the conviction for Christians has always been to protect and celebrate life at every age and stage, the unborn, the terminally ill, the refugee, every age and stage is an image of God.

This life participates in his goodness and in his character.

And by celebrating and protecting and honoring life, we are saying celebrating and protecting and honoring the creator that this life images.

That's why Stanley Hauervoss, a theologian, can say, I'd say in a hundred years, if Christians are people identified as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we will have done something right.

Why?

Because we'll have upheld what it means to be image-bearers of God.

This is our identity.

We're meant to participate, to reflect God's goodness and glory into creation, to find ourselves completely in Him as His.

He says, verse 28, God blesses them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

God gives a vocation to our first parents.

Be fruitful and multiply.

You'll notice that God doesn't just create life, but he creates life that creates life.

That's a pretty remarkable thing.

Plants and vegetations, human beings, all procreating according to their own kind.

God doesn't just want to order and fill the universe and then stop, because I nailed it.

I'm sure he did.

But he wants to see this ordering, this forming together of creation, this filling taken even further.

And through the ongoing work, the vocation of our first parents, he wants to see this flourishing further flourish even further.

In a way it wouldn't otherwise.

In other words, he's inviting our first parents to come partner with me in this ongoing work of creation.

And what higher vocation could there be than to be partners with God?

Of course, not on equal terms, but he is inviting us to participate with him in a real and meaningful way.

And procreation, of course, is a big part of that.

Be fruitful and multiply.

God has in mind that our first parents would indeed fill the earth with images of him, because this is good and life-giving.

We see that sex is good from page one of Scripture.

It gives life, but sex is inextricable from the reality of generating life, created in God's image.

It's meant to point us towards the God who created us, who desires us for Himself.

Now, the question that we might want to ask at this point is something like this.

If we don't have children for one reason or another, perhaps because we face infertility, or perhaps because we were never married and therefore called to celibacy, if I didn't fulfill this vocation to be fruitful and multiply, did I fail at my true vocation?

And the answer is no.

Our ultimate vocation is to find our life and our being in God.

And this command to be fruitful and multiply is meant to be taken together with what follows in verse 28.

God continues by saying, fill the earth and subdue it.

Have dominion.

Share in my creative work.

Take what's good and cause it to flourish.

So the idea here is that work is not a placeholder between the spiritual things we do in life that really serve God, that really please God.

Do you know what I mean?

That we can go from one Sunday to one Sunday thinking, yeah, that's what really pleases God.

That's when I show up and serve God.

And God wants us to know that the work I have given you to do is good.

And I've given it to you because you alone can do this work in such a way that it causes life to flourish.

Or at least it can.

We have the opportunity to partner with God and seeing life flourish in this particular nook of creation that He's placed us.

We gather together as Christians on Sunday, yes, to be reminded of who we are in God in Christ, and then to go out into our vocations that He's called us to.

Our work, our communities, our families.

All of these things are good, and God has asked us to subdue and have dominion to cause this to flourish through our partnership with Him.

So, if the question is, who am I?

Then we start to glimpse an answer in Genesis 1.

I am created in God's image.

I find my truest identity in Him.

And I'm called to partner with God in cultivating and causing creation to flourish.

This is a good beginning for human beings, a very good beginning for you and I.

But I think we should hit a minor chord before we conclude this morning.

Because as good as this image is of our good Creator God, of who we are created to be as his image bearers, we know that this doesn't fully describe the world we live in today, does it?

We know that this creation, which God has said is good, brings with it many things that are not good.

Brings with it disease and poverty and famine, brings with brings those things that ought not to be.

And somehow deep in our bones we know this is not the way it's supposed to be.

And we know that human beings created in God's image don't only image God, we commit acts of violence against one another, we betray one another.

Things are not the way they're supposed to be.

But if we glimpse the beginning clearly, maybe we begin to glimpse where all things are heading.

So in Revelation chapter 21, one of the last chapters of the Bible, John can say, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first earth and the f for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

And he goes on to say, I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

In other words, the story is going, the story is telling us that God is still at work redeeming his creation from chaos, from sin, and from death.

And God is actively at work doing that in your life and in mine.

And ultimately that restoration takes place in Jesus Christ, who restores to us the fullness of what it means to be image-bearers of God.

Echoing Genesis chapter 1, John writes in his gospel, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him not anything was made that was made.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

If we want to know what it means to if we want to know what the image of God truly means, we have to go to the one who has born the image of God perfectly, and that is our Lord Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God, who is the exact imprint of his nature.

We go to our Lord Jesus and we know the fullest sense of what being human means, but we also know the fullest sense of God's heart for us.

Because as God, he shows us his image, he shows us his goodness, he invites us to that true Sabbath rest for those who labor and are heavy laden.

By his cross, he takes what's corruptible, he takes death and sin and puts them to death, so that by his resurrection life we can have hope of new life and a new creation to come.

So the beginning tells us something about the end, doesn't it?

The transcendent creator addresses you and I even today through his word, and that's what makes this study, I think, so important.

Because we are called to a deeper sense of our own selves as his image-bearers.

And as such, we can sing the song of heaven in Revelation 4.

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

We worship a generous God who calls us to follow Him in giving willfully, cheerfully, and sacrificially.

Newsong Church's mission and ministry is one hundred percent funded by the generous gifts of those worshiping and journeying with us.

If you'd like to offer a gift towards Newsong's ministry, please visit Newsongportperry.ca slash giving for more information on how to do that.

May God bless you and keep you today and every day.