In the beginning… | Why is there something instead of nothing?

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Kicking off a brand new series today called Foundations.

Would you go ahead and just say that with me?

Foundations.

That's what I thought.

I didn't think anybody was with me.

Let's try it again.

Foundations.

Perfect, thanks.

Alright, here we are.

Life's wild.

You ever thought about that?

This is wild to me.

I don't get this.

Some of you, you don't care.

January, I celebrated my 44th birthday.

Thanks.

Thanks.

It just means I'm old.

I have a sophomore in college.

I have a senior who's turning 18 this month.

I have a freshman turning 15 in two months.

In the very near future, we're gonna be having a house with no kids in it.

Clap.

And my wife and I literally were having conversations almost like back from the beginning of like, what is life after kids?

And it feels a little bit like this.

It feels a little bit like when you graduated from high school, or when you graduated from college.

There's all those questions that are thrown at you, right?

You remember this, or maybe you're in this season where, like, where are you gonna go to school?

What are you gonna major in?

Um, you're graduating from college, what are you gonna do with your life?

You're like, well, that's a big question.

I don't know.

I'm 22.

What do you mean?

Like, where are you gonna live?

How are you gonna go about like what's your purpose?

What's your point?

And in the midst of all those questions that get thrown at us that we that we deal with and wrestle with, there's one question that we often miss, we forget, and it's vital.

And it's simply this what are you building your life on?

Like, what is the foundation of your life?

Like, what is the thing?

Oh boy, that was heavier than I thought.

I gotta work out now that I'm 44.

Like the truth is, and we get this, all of us are building our lives on something, but rarely do we take time to ask the question like, what is the thing or what are the things that our lives are being built upon?

And wouldn't it be amazing?

Wouldn't it be amazing if we had a manual or a guide to help us navigate life well?

Like when we're thinking about what we build our lives upon, we often build it around, you know, maybe it's our career, uh being successful, upward mobility, financially free or secure, right?

Uh I want to retire early.

That's the reason I'm in the valley.

Um, maybe it's around adventure or experiences, your family, your kids, happiness, pleasure, self-actualization, be the best version of you.

And then we're wondering, how do you do that?

We're in a six-week series beginning today called Foundations.

And what we're doing, we're actually going back to the very beginning of the Bible.

We're gonna spend actually the entire year in this book called Genesis or Beginnings.

And this series is actually just in Genesis chapter one.

If you read it today from our perspective, it's it sounds like how everything began.

It's the creation story.

And yet, if you were reading it as the original audience, you wouldn't be asking the question, how everything began.

They asked a different question.

And it's actually a much bigger question and more important for us today.

Instead of how did it all begin, like that scientific explanation, those are important, but they would ask, why does it exist?

And why does it matter?

And actually, Genesis chapter one is answering that question.

It's answering the question, why are you here and why does it matter?

What are the foundation blocks that build your life, that you are to build our lives upon?

We're gonna spend six weeks unpacking these foundational areas to build a life, to experience flourishing that God desires for us.

And so, if you got your Bibles or you got your notes, would you open up to Genesis chapter one, verse one?

We're just gonna talk about verse one today.

And um, verse one begins this way.

And wouldn't you do this for for me?

Would you go ahead and just read it aloud with me?

Okay, you ready?

You with me?

You ready?

Read, ready?

Okay, all right, right.

Okay, here we go.

In the beginning.

In the beginning.

It's not a scientific manual, it's a theological masterpiece.

That one sentence is amazing, by the way.

That one sentence isn't just an introduction, it's actually outlining one of the most core foundation pieces for us to build our lives upon.

The Bible begins this way, not with humanity, not with philosophy or with science, but with God.

Before there was time, space, or matter, God existed.

He's a part of, he is not a part of creation.

He actually caused it.

He is the uncaused cause.

What does this mean?

Why does this matter?

Foundation block building our lives upon.

God is the center of it all.

Biblical foundation for this is that God is the center of it all, meaning that in the beginning, what does it say?

In the beginning, what?

God.

Okay, we gotta be with me today.

Gotta be with me.

In the beginning, God, yeah, God.

That's it.

Not in the beginning, Ryan.

Not in the beginning, Jenny.

These are just my wife's name.

Fill in your name.

In the beginning, God, like everything exists because of God, meaning that God is actually eternal and self-existent.

Most other ancient origin stories around the world's creation, creation, things were created out of conflict.

The God's at war, and somehow creation came into being.

The Genesis narrative is fundamentally different, that the universe was not created out of war but peace, and a God who spoke.

The universe does not depend on God for his existence, but God does.

The universe depends, and let me say that again.

The universe depends on God for its existence, but God does not depend on the universe for his.

There is nothing before God, and there is nothing more basic or fundamental than him.

Foundation block number one for us is as we're building our lives in the beginning.

What are you going to build your life on?

And we have all these sort of things.

He's saying, in the beginning, oh, God.

Like God's the center of it all.

It all began because of him, it's all begun for him.

He started it.

Now, why is this important?

Because our cultural foundation today is simply this.

We begin today, not in the beginning God, but in the beginning you.

Because what fundamentally life is all about you, isn't it?

Live your best life.

Hey! YOLO, you only live once.

Come on.

Right?

It's all about you, it's all because of you, it's all for you.

You get to define whatever you want.

Sociologists and philosophers say that we live in the age of autonomy.

Expressive individualism.

Defined this way: that the highest good is the individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression.

The only authority is the individual.

The only authority is you.

There is no sacred order, no God, no higher truth.

Any structure or authority that restricts personal autonomy must be removed.

Don't you dare tell me how to live my life.

Now, none of us carry this definition around with us, do we?

We carry something more simplistic called street philosophies.

They go something like this.

Live your truth.

Right?

Live your truth.

There is no higher authority, there is no absolute truth.

You define reality, just live your truth.

Be true to you.

Come on.

You deserve to be happy.

Right?

You deserve to be happy.

Why?

Because the highest good is individual freedom and happiness.

The highest good is your happiness.

So do whatever makes you happy.

Follow your heart.

Why?

Because there is no outside authority but you.

You do you.

See, we carry these around.

This is actually the framework and the foundation culturally, the waters that we're swimming in that we accept as that is the core to life and how we are to build our life.

Here's what happens: it's what's interesting.

That's fundamentally an atheistic or agnostic worldview.

It's called secular humanism.

And yet 74% of Americans believe in God.

So we'd say these things, live this way, but believe in God.

What it produces in the church and everywhere else is what we call practical atheism.

Not the disbelief in God, but the enthroning of self as a greater authority.

Like I believe in God.

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

But I believe in me a whole lot more.

It's the enthroning that my way, my rights, my priority is higher and greater than anything else.

It goes something like this.

I believe in God, but I decide what's right for me.

I trust God, but only in areas where I'm comfortable.

Faith should be, should serve my needs.

It should never demand my surrender.

I am the ultimate authority on my life, my truth, and my purpose.

Now, there's parts of this, let's just be honest.

Doesn't it sound good?

Like, yeah, you deserve to be happy.

You do you.

You're like, woo, doesn't that sound awesome?

Listen to what it's producing.

One of the leading philosophers, French philosophers, uh Gil Lipoveski, writes this.

He says, and notes that accompanying our increasing autonomy and freedom is greater personal fragility.

He writes, and I quoted this last fall as well, but it bears repeating.

Hence, the individual appears more and more opened up and mobile, fluid and socially independent, but this volatility signifies much more a destabilization of the self than a triumph affirmation of a subject endowed with self-mastery.

Witness the rising tide of psychosomatic symptoms and obsessive-compulsive behavior, depression, anxiety, and suicide attempts, not to mention the growing sense of inadequacy and self-deprecation.

The more socially mobile the individual is, the more we witness signs of exhaustion, subjective breakdowns, the more freely and intensely people wish to live, the more we hear them saying how difficult life can be.

Freedom and autonomy, minus foundation, he says, produces fragility.

We live in a culture that tells us to look inward for meaning and purpose, to be true to ourselves, to reach self-actualization by achieving our dreams and defining our truth.

The truth is you were never created to be the center of your life.

It's a burden too great to carry.

And so as a result, we experience exhaustion, anxiety, depression at rates that have never been seen before in the history of humanity.

God is the center of it all.

And so life makes sense when God is at the center.

Begins what?

In the beginning, God is telling us that God is actually the main character of the story.

Your life and my life will make sense.

It begins to click, it begins to bring all of life into perspective.

It infuses meaning and purpose, life and hope.

When we recognize I'm not the main character, boy, does it take a lot of burden off your shoulders, a lot of pressure, all that weight of somehow having to define yourself and somehow live up to something and live in the shifting stands where everything's changing and all that you're feeling.

Gosh, don't we live under all that, like, oh, you're not the main character of your story.

God is.

And when you begin to center on him, your life begins to make sense.

The apostle Paul would say it this way about Jesus.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Now notice this, you ready for this?

For in him all things were created.

Speaking of Jesus, that he actually created it all.

That's an unbelievable thing that the creator, we'll get to this in a minute, but the creator of the universe stepped into his creation.

That's really cool, by the way.

We'll get there.

Things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities.

Now notice this.

All things have been created through him and help me out.

So Jesus made it all.

And we wrestle with our purpose, don't we?

Why am I here?

What's going on?

He said, You have been made for me.

Life works best when you recognize that you're not the main character, but you actually begin to center and organize your life around Jesus.

Because you are made for him.

And when you do that, all of life begins to lock in.

And what we do is we oh good reef.

We dethrone God, don't we?

We put ourselves in the place, and maybe God revolves around us and we wonder why we're struggling, why it's not working.

Foundation number one.

God is the center of it all.

He is the main character of the story.

Life works best.

Life makes sense when God's at the center of your life.

Foundation number two.

God is the architect of the universe.

God is not a distant force that just kind of wound things up and let it go.

Scripture speaks of God as an architect, a purposeful, intentional creator who designed the universe with precision and care.

The Bible consistently affirms that creation is not random, but the work of an intelligent, lovely, loving designer, the biblical foundation.

In the beginning, God, then it said what?

God created the heavens and the earth.

That He created, He designed, He architect them.

Here is the incredibly good news, and so many need to hear it in our day today.

You are not a cosmic accident.

If God is the architect of the universe, if there is a designer, if he did create you, you were created with intention, you were designed with meaning, and you have a purpose.

You are not an accident.

And how many of us are walking around going, I have no purpose, I have no future, and I have no destiny?

And that is fundamentally not true.

We have come to believe that life is just an happenstance, accidents like we're just here and we're just trying to eke through our existence.

No.

You're not an accident.

In fact, scientists will tell us about this incredible thing called the fine-tuning of the universe, right?

You know about this.

You took science at one point.

I think.

The fine-tuning of the universe refers to the fact that the laws, constants, and conditions of the cosmos are incredibly precise, making life possible.

For example, did you know there are over 30 physical constants, such as the force of gravity, the strength of electromagnetism, and the mass of subatomic particles.

Yeah, I know, I can't believe I said it right too the first time.

That are so precisely calibrated that even a microscopic change would make life impossible.

If the cosmological constant which governs the expansion rate of the universe were altered by just one part in 10 to the 120 power, the universe would either collapse or expand too quickly for galaxies to form.

The ratio of protons to electrons must be balanced to one part in 10 to the 37th power for stable atoms to exist.

The chances of our universe having the perfect conditions for life by random chance are so astronomically small you have a greater chance of winning the lottery 10,000 times in a row.

There's a greater chance that a tornado would hit a junkyard and produce a 747.

Paul Davies, physicist uh of Arizona State University, said the impression of design is overwhelming.

Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer, astronomer, atheist turned theist, wrote, A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology.

John Lennox, mathematician, Oxford University, said the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a creator gains in credibility as the very best explanation of why we are here.

Even Stephen Hawken, though atheist admitted, the remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.

You are not here by accident.

And boy is that goodness.

The more we see the universe and study it, we see order, not chaos, intentionality, not randomness.

You have intrinsic that is built in hardwired value, meaning, and purpose because you are created and designed intentionally by God.

It's simply this create your own meaning.

You create your own meaning.

You're the captain of your own ship, you're the hero of your own story.

You get to create your own meaning.

Sounds lovely.

And anxiety filling.

One of the most famous pictures ever captured by of the planet Earth was captured by the Voyager 1.

It was taken in February 14th, 1990, 35 years ago, four billion miles away from Earth.

Let me show it to you.

You see it?

Are you impressed?

It's that little dot right there.

You see it?

Go ahead, next slide so you can see it.

That's it.

That's Earth.

Carl Sagan, a famous astronomer, he wrote and titled it the Pale Blue Dot.

He wrote an op-ed uh on this, and what he said was this: look again at that dot.

That's here.

That's home.

That's us.

On everyone you love, everyone you knew, everyone you've ever heard of, every human being who has ever was lived out their lives.

Every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there on a moat of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

And then this is his conclusion.

The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage.

We are custodians of life's meaning.

We long for a parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes, but knowledge is preferable to ignorance.

Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.

If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

Translation?

This is one big cosmic accident.

You create your own meaning.

It's a hard truth to swallow.

But here's my question.

Carl.

Think about that.

Where did this matter stuff come from?

And for that matter, where did existence come from?

Why is there life at all?

I mean, why are there rational beings who can reason and think about the universe?

Why is the universe orderly and governed by laws?

Where did this idea of beauty, goodness, and love come from?

What is the purpose of existence in my life?

You know, human beings are fundamentally meaning-making machines.

Or beings is a better way to see it, because you're not a machine.

We can't help, hardwired into our DNA, is to look, to long for meaning.

If we have to create our own meaning, define our own identity, if we have to be the hero of our own story, if there is no creator, we're left trying to make sense of life on our own.

And if there is no higher meaning, then nothing really matters.

And in that we have to sustain an identity.

Your value becomes dependent on how well though you perform, how much you achieve, how others perceive you.

That's not freedom, that's pressure.

And without a sacred foundation, everything is in constant flux.

Morality, relationships, purpose.

What's true today might be deconstructed tomorrow.

When the ground beneath you keeps shifting, you'll never, we cannot find rest.

God is the center of it all.

He is the main character of the story.

And so life makes sense when God is at the center.

God is the architect, the designer of the universe.

And so life works best according to God's design.

Like your life and my life.

It works best.

When we go, God, you are the designer.

If there is a God, if he did design us, if he did create us, then doesn't that make sense?

Would you go ahead and just do this for me?

Would you go ahead and take out your iPhone?

Or your phone.

Sorry, I didn't mean to assume.

I didn't mean to assume.

I know there's other phone, phone, phone, phone.

Now let's just pretend you'd never seen one of these.

Like I said, I was I'm 44, I was born in 1981.

81, these things didn't exist, you know.

If we if someone dropped this in 81 or 85 or 1990 even, or even in 2000, they'd be like, what is this thing?

You look at it and you go, well, it's got some weight to it, right?

Hmm.

It could make a good paperweight, right?

Yeah.

I mean, for the most part, as long as it's not too windy, but yeah.

Can it fulfill the purpose of a paperweight?

Sure.

Was that why it was designed?

No.

And if you looked at it, you know, if you saw someone using this only as a paperweight, you're like, you're missing the whole point.

Well, then I find right here, I can press this button right here.

This is amazing.

Okay, there we go.

And now I got a flashlight.

How cool is that?

I got everywhere I go, I carry a flashlight.

That's fantastic.

Now, when I go out to eat because my eyes are so bad, I can read the menu.

Don't judge me, there's a lot of you that do the same thing too.

Right.

And if I tell you, man, I this here's the best part of this thing.

Everywhere I go, I carry a flashlight with me.

Isn't that awesome?

And you go, like, well, yeah, that that is a function of it, for sure.

That's wonderful, Ryan.

That's a good function.

But that's like just scratching the surface of what it was designed for.

Well, and then there's other times, like, you know, maybe I need to put a nail in the wall or attack, and I see this, it's kind of a little, right?

It's I mean, this is steel, and some of them are even made out of titanium now, which is amazing, right?

Well, I can I can use that.

You're like, no, that is actually opposite of its design, and it will break it.

When we look at this, there was a designer behind it, and then some of you designers are in the room who designed this with intentionality, intricacy, and there's a purpose and intent.

And when we understand it from the designer's perspective, the full functionality unlocks, and now we have the world at our fingertips.

But if I just take it and I don't allow or understand its design, I will never understand or in the impact of what this is or could be.

Here's this thing is we're doing that not with phones, but with our lives.

We're doing that with our lives of like, well, I get to define my own meaning, I get to define my own reality.

God forbid you tell me how to do life.

Are you kidding me?

I don't want to tell myself how to do life, and then we're running up to things of why am I empty?

Why am I exhausted?

Why am I so anxious?

Why does the future scare me so much?

Why do I feel like there's no meaning or purpose?

Why am I struggling with this sense of hopelessness in my life?

And we have this constantly.

Why?

Because life works best according to God's design.

In the beginning, God created you.

He designed you.

And I don't know what voices have been going on in your head or what things that you've believed, but listen to me.

You have infinite, intrinsic value and purpose because you have been created by an infinite, eternal God.

And it gets even better than that.

See, the interesting part is God was not content to just let us go about life and eke out this existence.

You have a God who not only created you, but then he stepped into creation to rescue you.

A God who is the architect of all that we see, and he longs to step into your life and rebuild what's broken.

And he is the head of the body, the church, the beginning, and the firstborn among the dead, so that in everything he might have supremacy.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, to restore, to redeem, to bring back into right relationship.

For God was pleased.

Sorry.

Whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross, the eternal God stepped into creation to rescue, to rebuild what was broken.

Jesus is actually the main character of history, the one who invites us into his story of redemption.

So as we close, let me ask you what are you building your life on?

What's the foundation of your life?

And would you build your life on Jesus?

Life makes sense when we center our lives on him.

When we allow him to be the designer and architect.

When we don't, we just got a lot of empty holes that we keep trying to fill.

And we never actually do.

The fulfillment your soul is longing for can never be found looking inside.

It will only be found by Jesus.

So as we close.

For some today.

Would you recenter your lives on Jesus?

Would you go, no, you know what?

You actually created me, and you know how life's supposed to work best.

So I'm going to begin to order my life on you.

For others, there's some in this room.

Listen, you had no idea that you had a God who loves you, who came for you, who died for you, who rose again, to bring you life and purpose and meaning to bring restoration and hope.

And today's the day where you go, you know what?

I've been building my life and foundation.

It's not working.

I'm going to build my life on you.

And the invitation is to say yes to Jesus.

And so, as we close, would you just pray with me?

And if you're in a place where you're where you do feel empty, you feel hurting, you feel hopeless, or you just feel like you're just kind of eaten out, going through the motions.

You look happy on the front side, outside to everybody else.

But inside, there's this longing.

Today, would you say yes?

Don't leave this place without saying yes to Jesus.

That's all prayer is, it's just a conversation with God.

I've been trying to build life on my own and it's not working.

Today I recognize that you're the center of it all.

And I invite you to be the center of my life.

Jesus, I believe that you came for me.

You died for me.

You rose again to new life.

To rebuild what's broken in my life.

And so would you come into my life and make me new?

Be the foundation of my life.

Thank you for your love.

Thank you for your grace.

If you're here and you just prayed that prayer with me, if everybody just keep their eyes closed, would you just raise your hand so I can help you?

Pray over you.

Just raise it high.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

The minute you say yes to Jesus, the Spirit of God comes in and brings new life.

Jesus, I pray for my friends in this room who have said yes, yes, for the very first time.

Thank you for the new life that is just starting in their.