In the Beginning

Jamie Greer was the Word and the Word was with God the Word was God.

There's a Trinity, God is God, but is also with God.

He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him without him was not anything made that was made to the word that God use of the father used to create everything was Jesus like Molly benefits and we are excited to be jumping into God's word today almost every culture and religion has its own creation story, their idea of how everything began.

That story says a lot about how the people in that culture ultimately view themselves and their relation to that creator will today. Pastor JD is unpacking the true story of creation found in Scripture is explaining how we were created and what that says about our ultimate purpose. It's part of our series called the whole story. We are starting in the book of Genesis and over the next few months will be working all the way through the Revelation. Pastor JD titled today's message in the beginning the Bible intimidates a lot of people so much in the Bible stand and sometimes even more difficult to apply to true story this week that I think completely encapsulates that report.

Leary was one of her college pastor told me that a guy serving a campus outreach befriended this past semester, a graduate student from China studying abroad here in the United States will scald his graduate student, Lee. He showed lots of interest in the faith he literally had never heard about Jesus before last semester so we dove right in, begin to learn that the gospel I make a long story Rolls-Royce shortly came to faith in Christ. Right before Christmas break last year. Well, just before he left to go home back to China for the Christmas break, the college pastor gives him his first English Mandarin Bible never owned Bible before his life. First time is one of his hands and just as read this on your own. While you're back home well at New Year's this college pastor gets a text from Miss Johnny student regarding Genesis 17 where God tells Abraham the sign of the covenant between me and you is that you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin leave believe that this was a step of obedience that Christians were supposed to take the read that morning you walk into a clinic in China that afternoon and then set this college pastor attacks that night to tell him that the deed was done. So I have two thoughts your number one you have to admire this kid's commitment to follow Jesus, I might make for a good rallying call on campus. How far are you willing to follow Jesus you go with him to the gauntlet.

Lee did number two.

It is possible to misunderstand or misapply parts of the Bible. Hopefully any misinterpretations that you have made are not that painful but needless to say it can be intimidating to just think of the Bible and say I'm going to read it and I'm going to obey everything that I see. Furthermore, while many of you have learned little bits and shards of Bible knowledge over the years. You never really brought it together in one unified whole, working to try to change that this year we are calling this series the whole story because that's what were going to see in all the stories all the commands all the genealogies all the characters there's really just one story that's been told and it's a story not about you and your life.

It's a story about Jesus. You have your Bibles I want you to take them out right now and I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis 11 Genesis 11. Last week we established that the Bible is not a book about you. This is often people's first and biggest mistake about the Bible.

I explained they approach it like a manual on how to fix your life. But I explained you of the Bible is not a book about you.

It's a book about Jesus. Every character, every genealogy points to him and I explained that the irony is when you see that that will fix your life. Or we might say like this, the point of the Bible is not to tell you how to fix your life. The point of the Bible is to fix your eyes on Jesus. And when that happens, his power will begin to fix your life where you're gonna see this simple message introduced in the very first verses of Genesis. Genesis 1 verse one here with me as I go through it 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 lights and there was light. Tim Keller says that in these three verses you can see three things that were present before creation began, each of which that has profound implications on how we live three things present before creation.

Here we go number one before the creation there was God there was God in the beginning God you say well.but you may not realize how unique this is in creation accounts and most other ancient creation accounts. The universe comes from something there usually multiple gods in our universe is the result of some cosmic battle. According to one myth. For example, the human race arises from the blood of the slain God, and another when they're created from the remains of the dead sea monster in these accounts. Humans are typically an accident or an afterthought.

The result of larger cosmic forces that have nothing to do with them yet. In the book of Genesis. Everything starts with one God who creates all by himself out of nothing. Theologians call this creation exit me hello or in Latin creation out of nothing in Isaiah 4424 says that God created the earth, he stretched out the heavens all alone. He was all by himself. Nobody was with them.

He took counsel with no one, not the angels. Nobody it all comes from him and it all exist for him and then Genesis says something else. It says that God made man and woman in his own image. Genesis 126 then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.

Verse 27 so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them.

Here's what all that means if all things come from God and God made us in his image. There are two things that we will only ever be able to find in him. The first is the measure of our lives, and by measure. I mean, what is good what is bad and what life's purpose is atheist. You see, have a problem. Many of them know it because it's been pointed out by many of the best atheist philosophers, guys like Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean Paul Sartre hi Michi and Sartre. By the way are my favorite atheist of all because they forced their atheism to its bitter logical conclusion, Sartre said that the atheist problem starts with good news. The good news he says is once you dispense with God you can do whatever you want, guilt free, with no dread of retribution if you get away with it on earth will get away with it for forever. The bad news. He says, however, is that when you get rid of God, you lose all intellectual bases for declaring anything to be inherently right or wrong. You see, in order to say something that is something is right or wrong. You have to have a standard to which you are comparing it to say something is against the design you have to know what the design is and if the universe is simply randomly colliding material particles then there can't be any design or purpose – there can be no right or wrong, you might argue, practically speaking, that certain things seem more useful for the human race based on your vantage point, of course, but that's different than saying that something is inherently wrong or evil.

You may feel that genocide is wrong. For example, but why just because you think is more useful of the human race for there not to be genocide well.

The Nazis had a different opinion and you might argue that they were wrong in that calculation that is different than saying that the strong targeting the week for extinction is evil and what's special about the human race anyway. Why should it survive. Why not let survival of the fittest do its work on us. You say, well, whatever the majority of people think is right.

That's what's right and that's what should be the law really where does that leave the slave living in the American South in the 1840s when the majority assumes that their oppression is what's most useful for society where does that leave the Jew in the 1930s in Europe if the Nazis had one and convinced everyone of the superiority of the Aryan race with that of the Jewish oppression right for the atheist. There is no such thing as true beauty again things from just things that we become programmed to believe are useful for us. Let me now quote for my least favorite atheist Richard Dawkins is the soundbite atheist and he says this in a quote when you certain scenery you think it is beautiful because your ancestors believe that there was food out there in that particular neurological feature that help them survive has now come down to you, and that's the reason that you see certain things is beautiful.

Honestly, just ask yourself do you buy that to you but if you do any really do that. I have a lot of respect for you because that just doesn't make sense with life that feeling that you have.

Looking out of the sunset around a starry night is just about finding food. We would start to remind you what we hear something. I just don't understand that. No, there is something in us that says that's absurd for that love that you feel for your kids or your spouse. Do you honestly believe that it is only what Richard Dawkins says that it is just a conditioned response that our genes have programmed us to make in order to propagate our DNA faster than our neighbors. Try putting that on a Hallmark card right. My jeans think you are useful for the propagation of my DNA. I would make out the doesn't have quite a romantic thing to it doesn't for the atheist things cannot be beautiful in themselves. They should only be useful. BC Christians believe that things are good and beautiful because they reflect the image of their creator.

The sunset is beautiful because it displays for us a beautiful God, and it makes us yearn for him. So when you see that beauty the sunset. Your heart is supposed to cry out God, your amazing your amazing your amazing how majestic is your name in all the earth. The reason we long for justice and the reason we cherish. Love is because we are made in the image of God is just and whose love is never ending. So because we come from God. God provides the measure for our lives and in because we come from God. We also find our meeting in him. That's the second thing you see the human heart is designed so that it only works when God is at the center. The way the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes and the Bible said it is that God is put eternity in our hearts. What that means is that every man and woman boy girl has this yearning in them that says there's something more than just what I see here on earth. A philosopher quote a lightning Blaise Pascal said it you probably heard this before, he says, in every human heart. There is a there is a there there is a holders of vacuum avoid these and we spent all of her life and figure out what goes into that vacuum. He says he says it first when your kid, you think it's the love of your parents and you think mom and dad approved me that I'll be happy as you get older you turn to romantic love. Sexual love get older still. You think now it's gonna be in money is going to be in the praise of people is going to be a success and 88. A lot of people without turning Sue on alcohol, drugs and sensual pleasure.

He says, but no matter what we try and like nothing never seems to work because that hole was in the shape of God himself is a God sized hole with a God shaped hole in until we get God in the right place. We always think that happiness is just around the corner. I'm not happy yet, but I know I'll do it when I achieve this, but until you find God, you haven't found the purpose for your life until you find God, life is like a tool tool that you just don't quite know what is for Veronica and I moved into in our family moved into her house that the previous owner should take everything out, but there was one key sitting on the mantle. But we could not for the life of us figure out what went sick so we spent three months just wants to connect to you in the face and see what it would we would work in nothing working in erotic adventures.

I will supply you to throw it away from my thoughts. Got go to something is not just there randomly. It's gotta go to some well winter comes and gets cold and we want to make a fire and you open the flu to keep the key codes to the foot. Honestly, I was a little disappointed because I was hoping it will be some like treasure chest. I would pull is on board and like launch memo national treasure and I get to be Nicolas Cage or curse of the like that but alas it was not to be, but the key had a purpose it inexpensive to get down the purpose is just what life is like until You Find Your Pl. in God. You know that is designed for something, but you just not quite sure what it is yet CS Lewis says that this is one of the most powerful arguments there is for the existence of God. Lewis as a baby feels hunger.

Well, there such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim well there is such a thing as water men feel sexual desire. Well, there such a thing as sex.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures can satisfy that yearning well earthly pleasures were never never really met the satisfy but only to arouse it only to suggest the real thing. You see what the Bible teaches you is that you bet beauty that you yearn for the sunset.

That's the piece that sense of eternity. When you look out into the stars is there because God made it. And God made it as a whisper and an echo of him because you are made in the image of God, you will never find your place in life until you have found yourself in God.

Everything is from him, it finds its measure and its meaning in him. Everything is for him it all exist for his glory. You were created for God's glory. You exist for it. And one day you will be measured by how much you lived up to that and I can promise you will only be fulfilled to the measure to the extent that you embrace the fact that you were created for God's glory you want created for you were created for sensual pleasures.

You want even creative for romance. You were created for God and the arms that you were searching for in romance. Actually, his arms, when you figure that out, life starts to make a lot of sense number two before the creation there was love for the creation there was love me say this in verse 26, God says, let us make man in our image related civil who is us. Ryan's anybody else in creation. Wagner Isaiah 40 forces gals all by himself loose.

Who else within their that's a great question about the Genesis 1 what you see is that in the first three verses of Genesis. What Christians call the Trinity that God one God, one essence of God existed in three persons, as they are in their first verses of Genesis. But in the beginning God the father created the heavens and the earth and the spirit of God.

There's your Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters literally in Hebrew. It's like a dove was fluttering over the waters. And God said God spoke.

That's the word.

The word is the means by which God created everything you say. Well I can see God the father and I see spirit of God.

When you get like God said, and that equals a word the Ray? John chapter 1, when the got when the author John the apostle is going to introduce Jesus Christ to you the starts by going back and recording Genesis. Any just something to be things of you in the beginning was the word is right, and the Word was with God the Word was God. There's a Trinity, God is God, but is also with God. He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him without him was not anything made that was made to the word that God use of the father used to create everything was Jesus from the very first chapter you see evidence that God is a Trinity three persons existing 1B and I know that's hard to understand and know when you feel thing about you mantle exited and exploded employee to figure out which one on the best we can do is come up with analogies and problem analogies avail breakdown when you press very far.

But here's what it means for us in God's very essence from the very beginning. These existed in relationship God didn't create us because we he was lonely he created us as an overflow of his love. The apostle Paul in fact will say that the best analogy that we have for the Trinity is marriage lipolysis marriage a God created marriage is a depiction of the Trinity and there's got to persons that come together in one new essence and by the way out of the new essence comes a child in a good marriage. You don't have kids because you're lonely you have kids schedule only marriage you scrub the kid you're supposed to bring the kid into a loving union that the love between the man and the wife spills out into on that relationship. That's what we see in Genesis God's love in the Trinity spills out on the campus of the universe and then he invites his creation and that love. That's all. One of the phrases you see repeated throughout Genesis 1 is the phrase, and God saw and God saw what I phrases all through their because God is like a good parent. What a good parents do they watch their kids all the time.

That's why some of you ladies in your nanny cam right now and you will recheck in three times. I just want to know everything that's going on. Hopefully not. Now is not at home but usually on Amigas you want to see you and all the gurgling older. Look at this a smile. God loved his creation like a daddy to just watching everything that was going on but away the most comfort and just depth of this meditation to think about that phrase this week, so God sees. Are you going to financial difficulty. God not distant God sees it. And you want to heartbreaker somebody betrayed you. Were you worried your body and paint God sees it is not a distant father.

He is a God that is close, you have not been forgotten. Genesis 1 screams that you Genesis 1 is an overflow, the love of God you can see that even in the literary structure of the chapter she Genesis 1 is not just a straightforward recounting of the facts. Genesis 1 is a very artistically written piece does all this repetition and patter each of the days of creation is told with this pattern where and God said, and God saw it and it was good and the evening in the morning were the first day is something like a poem or a song that may be the best equivalent we have in English as a spoken word repeating and it was good. At the end of each phrases like say it come when it come, when it is egress how you should hear that the Chronicles of Narnia. CS Lewis presents creation happening is acyl in the line representing Jesus singing the song of joy and intimacy in the Trinity in creation just spills out of that song. Here's what that means for you practically wasn't because we are created in the image of a God who exists in love just like our lives will never be complete until God is at the center our lives will also never be complete until we are living in loving community with others. The path of godliness always leads toward community always the path of godlessness always leads toward isolation the path of godliness. We forge relationships and commitment and things like small groups. Memo me talk to you for a minute on specifically because as we get older is men.

Men tend to get more more isolated. I do starts with an absence of friends.

Think about your dad for a minute. Can you name his friends. If you're average. You can't renew your mom friends words you don't know your dad's friends words about him having a eventually we pulled inward from our wives. That always leads to destruction, and on helping us. Proverbs 1824 and isolated man seeks his own desire and rages against all sound judgment or I was to be the quote from David Pallas and things that grow when a secret garden. Always grow mutants whenever you're isolated whenever it secret it will grow mutant. Not because you're a bad person because that's how God designed you to be was in relationship. When that's not bear UD form God created our hearts and lives to work only when we are in deep committed community with others you know that by the way, you know, that instinctively just ask yourself how much different would your life have been if you had grown up in community. What difference would have made in your home growing up.

If your your parents and your family had been surrounded by godly community would have prevented your parents divorce. Would your dad's life have been like if he had close friends who were speaking into his life supporting him in difficult times. Speaking wise and godly counsel how much different would your life be if you had been in community as you got older. What stupid mistakes. Would you have avoided if there were just people around you that were saying don't do that. That is, Don don't do that. I know the tribe don't go that fast. How much better would your life be in the days to come. If you had community that was walking with you through every situation you go through speaking words of comfort and strength and power don't you inherently know that community leads to life, as you know that the reason that you know that is because it's an inherent part of God's life to in your name in God's image and that's why your life never be completed to your and that deep committed community. I realize that things like small groups can be messing around for some time disease your people. Young is 100 your life, but I'm just telling you your life will always be deformed always been unhealthy when you're not in the kind of relationships God community didn't take away from this message titled in the beginning from Senate life JD Greer if you missed the beginning of today's message. You can hear it online@jdgreer.com JD congratulations on the launch of your new book this week beginning this new but just ask. You are willing to capture the simplicity of prayer Molly because a lot of people really have accomplished a relation in prayer because like they they they have a questions about it is it changing God's mind and what about the sovereignty of God and MSA in the right thing and using the right phrases when the driving analogy that you find to out Jesus is teaching in the Gospels is that we come to God like children to appear in a loving parent and a loving parent in my kids when they come to me. They don't think about anything they just ask. They ask whatever is in their heart and what we want to grow in our maturities, we pray. We also want to have that childlike dependence that rush toward our heavenly father. That's the heartbeat of true prayer and was hoping to communicate that this book, let us make you one of the first to get Pastor JD's newest book titled just ask into your hands. Jesus promises you have not because you and whatever you ask in my name, I will give it to consider God's word to Jeremiah call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know if an invitation to a conversation. It seems like the entire thrust of the Bible is God is here. Just ask this new book is hot off the presses and we want to get you a copy today comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry. Ask for our new resource titled just ask you give today by calling 866-335-2866 335-5220 easier you can get the book online. JD Greer.com if you'd rather mail your donation are addressed. JD Greer ministry, PO Box 12293, Durham, NC, 7709 and if you need to send that life for email last you'll receive devotional blog post as well as the popular is in for your weekend describing right now when you get JD Greer.com Molly benefits and I am so glad you joined. The next time we were continuing our study at the creation account Wednesday on Senate life JD Greer 1980