Topic: Creation, Pt.1

 2 Timothy 1:9 (NASB) ⁹ who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, 

Jude 1:24 – 25 (NASB) ²⁴ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, 

²⁵ to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

John 17:5 (NASB) ⁵ “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Monday Morning Moment: Jesus always was, Jesus always is and Jesus always will be.

Transcript (may contain transcription errors)

So we kind of started this series a couple of weeks ago,

just an introduction to Genesis 1.

And two reasons I’d like to really study this book.

Number one, it’ll really be kind of a summary of the series

that we did on Genesis before.

But number two, I think starting with the book of Genesis,

it gives us a foundation for our faith.

It teaches us how to believe and trust in God.

And it tells us a lot about our redemption

through Jesus Christ.

So we’re kind of subtitling this series, Jesus and Genesis,

finding Jesus in Genesis, understanding

how Jesus started working towards saving us

and redeeming us way back in the very first book

of the Bible.

So a couple of housekeeping announcements.

If you come to Sunday School, we’ll

give you one of these books, a really cool book.

You can’t get these books if you just come on Sunday at 11.

For the people that come on Sunday at 11,

this is what you get.

For the people that come on Sunday at 10,

this is what you get, size matters.

So come at Sunday School, I’ll give you

one of these free of charge, even beginning today.

We have an honor system.

We’ll give you the book in advance.

Believe in that, you’ll be honest to your word.

It comes to Sunday School online or on site.

If you’re online and you like a Sunday School book,

just let me know.

I’ll have one dropship to you from Amazon

or Christian book distributors.

If you come on Sunday morning for Sunday servers,

we’ll be teaching the extension of the lesson from the book

during our sermons on Sundays as well

for the next 12 weeks or so.

It might go a little longer.

But we’re gonna talk about beginning the first book

of the Bible and how it all began with Jesus

and how Jesus will also be there at the end.

Amen?

Amen.

So just a couple of quick things on this

that I think would be easy for you to understand.

We’re gonna break Genesis into two parts.

It’s a big book, it’s 50 chapters.

It’s one of the larger books in the Old Testament.

The largest book in the Old Testament is Psalms.

That would have been a good question for the red white flax.

The smallest book in the Old Testament

is one of those books like, I think.

Amos might be in there, Amos might be in there.

I was thinking Esther is probably only,

well, Ruth is only four chapters.

So Ruth is qualified for one of the smaller books,

but it might be one of the prophets like Obadiah or Zachariah,

one of those guys.

But the smallest book is not the point.

The point is that Genesis is one of the larger books

and it covers a lot of territory.

The first, theoretically, the first 2000 or so years

of planet Earth we learn about.

And Genesis, a book written by Moses,

a book written to tell us how things began.

And also gives us a glimpse on how things were in.

God said after the flood over in Genesis six,

that he wasn’t gonna destroy the world by water anymore.

That when he destroys the world the next time,

it’ll be by fire.

And so we, as believers, wanna be ready

so that doesn’t affect us, amen?

That that won’t be a part of our future.

So in Genesis one, a couple of things

that I wanna make before I tell you

just the two biggest takeaways.

In Genesis chapter one, a few things that are important.

Number one, the guy created the heavens and the earth.

And Genesis one, one, it says,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

I mentioned to you in Sunday school

that when you see heavens with a lowercase H

and the S on the end as a plural,

it’s referring to various parts of the stratosphere,

the atmosphere, the ionosphere.

We’re talking about heavens in terms of the universe.

When you see heaven with an uppercase H

with no plural on the end,

it’s referring to God’s throne, God’s domain of heaven.

So heaven, heavens.

Paul said I was caught up into the third heaven.

He was referring to a place that we talked about

that might be somewhere between God’s domain

where his throne is and the upper atmosphere

beyond the planets, beyond the stars.

And in Genesis one, he tells it in verse one

that he created the heavens and the earth,

lowercase H, plural.

X and the hilo is the Latin word that describes

something from nothing.

God created something out of nothing.

And he did it instantaneously.

It seems as though when we see Genesis one, one,

that God sort of thought the earth

bought the universe into existence.

I know we don’t get the stars and the planets

until verse four or day four rather.

But it’s like all of this one,

it’s as though God is saying and God said, let there be.

It’s like this is just coming from his mind.

We know that Psalms eight chapter, eight verse three says,

and he created to have the earth and the planets

and the stars with his fingers.

But I’m wondering is that flowery language

or poetic language for giving us sort of a human representation

of how they got actually create the earth?

Well, I think in the universe,

I think he’s spoken into existence.

It was just, it was in his thoughts

and he said it with his mouth as it were

and it came into existence.

X and the hilo, something out of nothing.

No process didn’t need billions and billions of years

as the Darwinist and the evolutionist would suggest

he didn’t need an evolutionary process.

There weren’t this gap theory between Genesis one

and Genesis two where there could have been

a long period of time to get from God said,

let there be heavens and earth to the point

where there’s actually life forms and a cosmos.

I don’t think it required that.

If God is God, why does he need time?

Why does he need an evolutionary process, right?

I mean, if he could create you and I,

if he could create life at any level

from a single organism to a human being,

why does God need time?

God does not require time.

The Bible says to the Lord,

a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.

God is not restricted by time.

He is not limited.

He’s not constrained by time.

God does not require time the way we do.

He’s eternal.

He always was, always will be and always,

always has been, always is and always will be.

Matter of fact, that’s our Monday morning moment.

Let me just give it to you right now

because that’s what I chose for the Monday morning moment

because I think it kind of explains

the statement that Jesus said to the Jews

that were around him over in John 858.

He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

And so our Monday morning moment is Jesus always was,

Jesus always is and Jesus always will be.

I’ll say it again, Jesus always was.

So there’s essentially no point in history

where he did not exist.

He always is, he’s always in the present for us right now.

And he always will be.

He is always will be in the future to meet our needs.

So he made this great statement in John 8, verse 58,

when they were questioning him about his lineage

and said, “You know, we know where you’re from.

“We know your parents, we know how old you are.”

And he said, “You’re not as great as our father Abraham.”

And they were making accusations.

And Jesus said, “Before Abraham was,

“I am.”

And you know, I’ve talked about this before,

so I won’t go into great detail over that.

The great seven I am’s are in the gospel of John.

You can read them.

But this statement, this particular verse,

this particular statement was introduced in the Bible

way back in chapter three of Exodus.

And Jesus, actually the phrase was coined

when Moses asked God, “Who should I say sent me?”

When he was asked to go and deliver the Israelites

from Egyptian bondage.

And Moses wanted to know, “Well, hey,

“who’s the authority am I acting upon?

“Who do I tell the children of Israel down in the ocean

“of Egypt sent me under who’s authority,

“under whose auspices am I giving these orders

“or going to lead them out?”

And he said, “I need to know your name.

“I need to tell them your name.”

Remember that whole encounter?

That narrative back in Moses’ history in the burning bush

and chapter three of Exodus.

Well, when Moses asked God to give him a name,

here’s the discussion started in verse 13

of Exodus chapter three.

If you wanna look at this,

he said, “Then Moses said to God,

“Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel.”

By the way, Israel’s another name for Jacob.

God was, Jacob’s name was first Jacob,

which means supplantor.

Kind of means, you know, kind of crooked,

kind of shifty, a little unsavory.

God said, “I’m going to change your name,

“to change it to Israel.”

And he said, “The sons of Israel,”

in verse 13 of Exodus chapter three, he says,

“I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers

“have sent me to you.'”

Now they may say to me, “What is his name?”

Capital H, “What shall I say to them?”

This is Moses talking to God.

And God responds in verse 14 of Exodus chapter three,

and says, “God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am.'”

The King James version may say, “I am that I am.”

But this is probably more accurately rendered.

I am who I am because he is a who, not an it, not a that.

So God said, “You tell them, I am who I am.”

And thus, “You shall say to the sons of Israel,

“I am has sent me to you.”

And I love that verse because that’s the first time

we’re introduced to this expression, “I am.”

This is Yahweh.

This is Jehovah, Yahweh, Yeshua.

This is Adonai, Elinai.

This is God’s name in its simplest form,

this form that God gave to Moses to tell Israel.

You let them know that I am that I am,

or I am who I am, have sent you.

I don’t know how the Israelites in Egypt

would have understood who that was.

I’m imagining that God was going to reveal it to them

divinely, that there would be a witness in their spirit,

that this guy named Moses, who they knew, by the way,

that he has the authority and he’s acting on my authority

to give you these messages, but they believed them.

And wouldn’t you believe anybody that was coming

to deliver you from slavery?

You don’t have to tell me twice.

You mean we getting out of here?

You mean we get to leave?

We going wherever home might be.

We just getting up out of here.

I’m down with that.

Whatever his name was, I can’t pronounce it.

I don’t understand it.

I can’t interpret it, but I’m okay with that.

Let’s go.

When do we leave?

Ten plays later, they left, but they left.

Better late than never, right?

So that’s where we get that term.

So Jesus said to these unbelieving Pharisees and Sadducees

and even to his disciples, you need to know one thing,

that before Abraham was born,

before Abraham even existed,

before Abraham was a twinkle in his mother’s eye,

eye existed.

Not I was, not I was, I am,

which suggests, by the way,

the reason the language is very important there,

because the tense of the term, there I am,

being that it’s a present,

and a present tense word,

suggests that God doesn’t have a history.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit,

does not have a history.

He has always been part of the Apostles’ Creed.

He always has been, always was,

always is, always shall be.

God is not defined like we are.

I remember I once did a funeral service,

a homegoer, and they asked me to do the eulogy.

I remember I talked about the dash.

It was something like the person was born 1934 to 1964.

And I talked about the dash that exists between

our birthday and our death date.

And I talk about, it’s a little dash,

it’s a little symbol,

but boy, that’s our whole life, right?

When you say, you know, John Doe, 1920 to 1990,

that 70 years represents a small fraction on paper,

but it represents the entirety of one’s life.

And I wanted to make the point that when we’re born,

there’s a start and a finish.

God has no beginning date, and he has no ending date.

We serve the Lamb of God who always have existed, amen?

So that’s how Jesus came up with the expression here.

And I wanted to bring that up because I wanted to lay out

a plan before you guys that Jesus existed before Genesis.

Before we even start the Bible,

Jesus, the Son of God, existed.

He didn’t just become on the scene as Mary’s little baby.

Right?

Some people think that he doesn’t even enter the picture

and tell Matthew when he’s born in the stable.

Sorry, he existed, Second Timothy one nine says

that he has saved us and called us with a holy calling,

not according to our works,

but according to his own purpose and grace,

which was granted unto us in Christ Jesus.

Watch this from all eternity.

The book of Jude says that to the only God our Savior

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority.

Watch this before all time, now and forever, amen.

Jesus existed before time.

How is that even possible?

We can’t comprehend the magnitude of an existence

before time because we only can deal with here and now.

We live in a time continuum that exists with matter,

with physical representation.

We live when what we can see, we live by our senses.

Jesus existed prior to that.

John 17, five says, I want to be together with you,

with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

Before Genesis one one, there was Jesus.

So salvation was already a part of God’s eternal plan

way before Adam and Eve resided in the Garden of Eden.

You know, God didn’t just think this up

after the serpent tempted them to eat the fruit.

This plan of salvation, this plan of redemption,

this plan of restoration to paradise

was hatched, was presented, was thought by God

and created even before Adam and Eve

were created from the dust.

God already had a plan of reconciliation.

He had a plan of redemption.

Aren’t you glad to know that you’re that important to him?

You matter that much.

No wonder it says in Genesis one verse 26

that he created them in his image.

Let’s make man in our image.

Let’s make him in our lightness.

It was all about God always made us to be his,

to be above the animals, to be above the other creatures

in its creation because we were made in his image.

And so this plan of salvation that we hear about,

first we hear about it in Genesis 3.15

when the serpent was being reprimanded

for his role in the destruction or the fall of man,

God gives us this little clue

about how redemption would take place.

So this all started before the foundation of the world.

Colossians, let me read two more verses for you.

And I’ll let you go.

Colossians 1 16 says this for by him,

all things were created.

This is Jesus.

It’s a reference to Jesus.

That’s our series, Jesus in Genesis.

It says by the writer of Colossians,

which we believe to be Paul.

By him, all things were created both in the heavens.

There’s that word again.

Heaven’s lowercase H plural represents

all of the universe.

The territory between the earth and the clouds,

the territory between the clouds and the planets and stars

and the territory beyond the stars and the solar system.

That’s what God created through Jesus Christ.

It says here in Colossians that all things

have been created through him and for him.

He is before all things that in him,

all things hold together.

He is the beginning.

So Jesus was before all things.

He’s then all things.

He created all things and he created it for himself.

I’m blown away by this because it gives me more confidence.

And whatever you’re going through,

you can know for sure that God is bigger than your problems.

God is bigger than your adversary.

God is bigger than the issues that confront your life.

We don’t serve a tiny little God.

We don’t serve a man.

We don’t serve a philosophy.

We don’t buy into an indoctrination.

We don’t buy into some series of information or data.

We serve a living, breathing, loving, gracious, kind,

eternal, everlasting God.

That’s who we serve.

And that should encourage us today.

In spite of all the things that’s been going on in our church

with the losses and the things that have come about

and some of the sorrow and the grief that we’ve all experienced,

God still loves us and he’s still bigger than these issues.

And he still has a plan for us.

We don’t know the plan necessarily,

but it doesn’t dismiss the plan.

It doesn’t diminish the plan.

God still has a purpose for us.

We’re not here by accident.

The things that are going on in our lives are not incidental.

They’re not coincidental.

They’re not prepping chance.

They’re not circumstances.

They are orchestrated.

They are informed and instructed by the Lord God.

And that’s where we should take our confidence.

Amen.

And I want to encourage you that this is not just something

that a book that you should read as bedtime reading.

The Book of Genesis is a book of not only information

and instruction, but it’s also a book of encouragement.

It lets us know who’s really in charge here.

Amen.

It lets us know who’s really running the show.

In spite of how bad things are in the street.

In spite of how bad things are on our job or in our family

or on our block or at our school,

regardless of how rough things look, God is still in charge.

And it’s for a purpose.

I can’t think of a better statement

than Joseph’s statement in Genesis 50/20.

I know I quoted a lot, but I think it’s just one of the best.

When he told his brothers after Jacob had died

because his brothers thought like, OK, now the other,

she was going to drop.

And Joseph was going to lower the boom on us

for what we did to him.

And he’s going to extract his powder on the flesh.

Joseph said, no, I know what you guys are thinking.

You’re thinking that I’m going to extract revenge

for you so many slavery.

That was cold, though, by the way.

He didn’t say that, but I’m just speaking for him.

What y’all did was wrong.

But he said, but Jacob, Joseph, being a bigger man,

taking the high road, rather than trying to get revenge

and get his powder in the flesh, he said, what you did,

you meant for evil.

Don’t think I didn’t understand what you were doing.

And God certainly knows what you were doing.

It was horrible.

Because I got a coat of many colors,

you’re going to sell me in the slavery.

You’re going to leave me for dead.

Some of the brothers actually wanted to kill him.

When we get to that, we’ll go into it.

Simeon stood up and it was Ruben, I believe that.

That’s saying, well, let’s not kill him.

But the point is that some of his siblings wanted to kill him.

And all for jealousy, and Joseph said, you meant it for evil.

You had bad intentions for me, but God meant it for good.

God had a plan.

See, even in our grief, even in our sorrow,

even in our circumstances, even in our bad times, our sad times,

God is still working his plan.

He’s working something in us, or he’s working something.

All of us.

But he’s working through us.

Amen.

Let me just read you this one scripture.

Just popped in my head over in Philippians.

Because it essentially says that when Paul was writing

to the church at Philippi–

I think it’s verse 13 here in Philippians–

he says that in the first chapter of Philippians,

he says, for I am confident, verse 6–

actually, I’m confident of this very thing–

that he will have begun good work in you.

The King James Version says, complete it.

It says here in the New American Senate,

we’ll perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.

He will perfect it.

He will make it the way he wants it to be.

He’s working things in us.

And listen, and he’s working things out of us.

He’s getting stuff out of us.

He’s extracting stuff out of us that we don’t need.

So it’s not just the stuff that’s going on in our lives

that we look at as being something that’s a struggle,

that’s a mountain.

But God is also in the process of taking things from us

that are harmful to us.

It’s kind of like a detox.

He’s taking stuff out of our system that’s harmful,

that’s poisonous, that’s unhealthy.

And he’s also replacing that with nutrients, with power,

with energy, with purity that makes us better,

that makes us stronger.

Please believe that.

Please be encouraged by that.

Please know that God doesn’t allow anything

to happen by accident.

And that God isn’t interested in seeing us squirm.

He’s not interested in seeing us cry,

that he is always working for our good.

Even if peer tears are involved,

David says that he counts them.

He measures them, he collects them in his bottle.

In other words, that’s code for they don’t go unnoticed.

God is not just about pain and suffering

for the sake of pain and suffering.

If there’s pain and suffering in our lives,

it’s to bring us to a better place.

It’s to make us better, make us stronger,

make us healthier spiritually.

And sometimes, even physically and mentally and emotionally.

Amen?

Nothing goes through God’s filter

without him knowing exactly what’s coming our way.

Everything goes through his filter.

And he’s always working to our good.

Amen?

Let’s pray.

Lord, we just thank you for your word this morning

for this introduction or overview of Genesis chapter one.

Just giving us Lord of insight on your mind.

Although we don’t know your mind,

we can’t possibly know your thoughts

because your thoughts are above our thoughts

as the heavens are above the earth

and your ways are above our ways as the heavens are above.

But we thank you Lord for these little snippets,

these little insights, these little glimpse

that you allow us to encourage us,

to keep us on the straight and narrow,

to keep us encouraged that you’re still in control.

Help us Lord, to stay focused on you,

not to become seduced by the world

and the things that are in the world

and the problems of the world.

But Lord, we just ask you to help us

to keep our minds on what you want to accomplish

in our lives, help us to trust you,

help us to be strong in our faith,

help us to be strong in our commitment towards you.

In Jesus’ name we pray, amen, amen, amen.