Today we are starting a new sermon series for the year. Not sure how long
it's going to go, but we are going to start at the beginning. It's loosely
titled, The Whole Idea of It is From the Beginning to the End. And you might think,
my goodness, are we doing the Bible in a Year Plan? Well, maybe in your own
personal devotions that would be fantastic, and there's a lot of really
good options out there. A quick Google search will help you find one. No, what
we are going to look at from the beginning to the end is how the
beginning of the Bible sets the framework and the foundation for all of
our theological discussions after that, and how a lot of what is there is also
going to be at the end. The stability of God, the grand and greatness of God, the
love of God poured out into creation and humanity, our response to
Him, the mess we have found. Some of these big issues, it's really good to kind of
get back to the beginning, but we don't only want to stay at the beginning
because there are implications to the end. When God says, I am, in that fantastic
statement to Moses, I am that I am, tell them that I am has sent you, that I am
encompasses He who was and is and is forevermore. And so we're going to look
at that from the beginning to the end. And so we are starting at the most
appropriate beginning, Genesis 1 verse 1 today. Let's offer one more brief word of
prayer and then we will kick it off. Loving Heavenly Father, we are so
grateful that you have shown yourself to us, that you are not a God who stays so
distant, but you have revealed yourself. You want to be known. You want us to
search you out. And so as we begin this journey into your Word, this diving deep
into these passages, I pray that you would reveal yourself more and more
through the presence of your Holy Spirit and especially as we see you embodied in
the person of Jesus Christ. We pray these things in your name, amen. There are some
fantastic beginnings in literature, some really good opening statements to some
of the best writings that have ever been written down and cataloged and kept
We can think of the opening to The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. He
was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone
84 days now without taking a fish. Makes you think of a man who's alone but
experienced, but right now he's maybe a little down on his fortunes or his
successes. We can think of the opening line to Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Who
knows it? Call me Ishmael. And off you go. A book about this big started out with
three simple words. Call me Ishmael. And then one of my favorites, the opening to
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It was the best of times. It was the
worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was
the epoch of belief. It was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of
light. It was the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter
of despair. And if you were to title a book A Tale of Two Cities and you open
with a list of opposing dichotomies, that's a great line and a solid
beginning because I would certainly read that and go how does this fill in and
finish out through the rest of this tale of two cities. I would propose to you
though that the best opening line in recorded literature if you will is what
we read in Genesis 1 1. If you have your finger there it's not hard to find. First
book, first chapter, first verse we read. In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth. Why do we start there and why is that the best opening line in
recorded literature? It's deep and it's profound and it sets the stage for
everything that comes after that. We're talking theology. We're talking
ontology, your being. We're talking anthropology, the understanding of
mankind. We're talking sotorology, the study of salvation is in there. We're
even talking a little bit about Christology, the study and understanding
of Christ because John 1 1 takes us right back to here. In the beginning was
the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and it goes on to say
that that Word was God created. So we have all of this encapsulated in one
sentence. It is deeply profound and it is often largely abused. I don't mean by
that in that Christians tend to abuse it or those who believe in God's creation
but mankind has strayed or misused or worked it around because we are trying
to find something other than. If as Christians we believe that we are built
in the image of God, that God has had his hands on us and we're shaped like that,
that means a part of us has a spiritual aspect. We're not just flesh and blood and
bones and matter. We're not just our emotions and the firing of our synapses
in the brain. We're not just that. We also have a sensitivity to spiritual things.
Everybody demonstrates that throughout history and where people are searching
for that deeper moral existential spiritual thing, they come to various
conclusions because I would propose that even the atheist has a spiritual
conclusion. The agnostic has a spiritual conclusion. The various religions
obviously have spiritual conclusions. What we have and what we're going to
start with though is from Sister White and Testimonies 8 and just bear with me
because this is going to get kind of filled in. Those who question the
reliability of the scripture records have let go their anchor and are left to
beat about upon the rocks of infidelity. When they find themselves incapable of
measuring the Creator and his works by their own imperfect knowledge of science,
they question the existence of God and attribute infinite
power to nature. Starting with Charles Darwin most famously, I believe there
were some rumblings before that, but certainly with Darwin that's what we
have and that has permeated our culture and our scientific understanding around
the globe. At some point way back when and that number keeps getting larger and
larger and larger, what was not there all of a sudden became there and what was
empty and void all of a sudden had this flash and things appeared and it had
everything that we needed to finally kind of sort itself out all the way until
we have now. I've super condensed that. That's basically it. You have to ask
yourself well then what caused the spark or you know why or how long was there
nothing and then yeah I mean there's more questions that we never really
seem to come around to an answer but it seems that with the beginning of kicking
God out of the consideration then it makes sense you would start to kick the
rest of Scripture out of the consideration. God as creator means you
can start to exclude many many other portions of Scripture and eventually all
of Scripture including its objective external effect on us. I believe that's
why we've led to a very subjective society today. But then it's also this
because some Christians might also say that we have to exclude all of that
scientific stuff and maybe separate it from the Creator and what we see from
the Bible. Well there's a harmony. Sister White goes on, in true science there can
be nothing contrary to the teaching of the Word of God for both have the same
author. A correct understanding of both will always prove them to be in harmony.
Truth whether in nature or in revelation is harmonious with itself in all its
manifestations but the mind not enlightened by God's Spirit will ever be
in darkness in regard to his power. This is why human ideas in regard to science
so often contradict the teaching of God's Word. Our first look at this first verse
brings back into harmony God and nature, God and creation, God and science. Many
arguments have been presented for and against the existence of God, many
multiples. We're going to consider the one though that has had the greatest
influence on Christianity's understanding of God's pre-existence
because if we take note in how this verse kicks it off in the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth we have to wonder about the beginning and
God already being there because that's what we read. Moses was not inspired, God
did not impress upon him and Moses didn't take it upon himself to start
explaining why God was there or how God got there or anything like that. It was a
statement of fact that God there. After that don't stress, after that don't
consider or contemplate but men like to do that and so you have arguments that
try to explain how God could or could not have been pre-existing but our first
real takeaway that we'll look at today is that God pre-exists creation. First the
greatest influence in favor of God's pre-existence it was first presented by
believe it or not Plato and Aristotle. They have some influence on our
Christian understanding of things. It was further developed by Thomas Aquinas and
how he has phrased it and concluded has carried through all the way and it
actually still stands up. Other attempts at this really haven't been quite as
good. We call this the first cause argument, the first cause argument and it
goes something like this as you study nature as we look around at the natural
world and the order of those laws we observe cause and effect in nature. Is
that true? Let's use an example. Rain. We get a lot of rain in this area. We've had
a lot of rain this week. Well how does rain occur? Well rain is caused by the
moisture in the air as it cools it condenses and eventually becomes so
heavy it can't stay up there it falls. Well you have to ask yourself how did the
moisture get into the air? What caused the moisture to be into the air? Well
evaporation right as the liquids heat up they evaporate they rise and so on. Well
what causes evaporation? Well heat. What causes the heat on our planet? The Sun.
What causes the heat in the Sun to occur? Well I can't tell you the intricacies of
that. It's a very complex kind of nuclear thing that's going on in in this ball of
a hot and gassy and fiery furnace out there and that generates the heat. Well
what causes that reaction to happen? Do you see what what we're getting at? If
you follow that chain and all of the multiples of causes and effects as we
can observe in nature if you follow every one of them in the observable
universe all the way back as far as you can go you eventually get to a point
where you don't have a cause. At some point you run out of causes. Aquinas
proposed that that's where we see God. That's God. In other words God is the
first cause. He caused according to his divine will and then every effect after
that occurs. That also means that God is the first cause meaning that he is the
uncaused. We see what I'm saying with that. Nothing caused God. Nothing
impacted upon him to affect his existence. He just simply is there. He is
the uncaused and he's the first cause of every other effect afterwards. And that
continues through to today and this is this is carried out in Scripture. We read
from a for example Psalm chapter 90 and verse 2. Before the mountains were
brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to
everlasting you are God. That is the psalmist's way of describing God as the
first initiator of everything else that we see. Before anything was formed you
were there and not just that you were there but from way back when until way
back until way forward there. This means that as we read Genesis chapter 1 and
verse 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth we are not reading
about God's beginning and we shouldn't try to read into that because Moses
doesn't give us that and neither does God. God doesn't take any efforts at
explaining his pre-existence. He just is or he as he would say it I am. I just am.
Rather what we are reading from Genesis chapter 1 in verse 1 is how God inspired
Moses to record the beginning of that history which uniquely pertains to man,
to mankind. Because in this account in the beginning we already see God that
means that God pre-exists the beginning. Go follow it all the way back and you
find God. He's already there.
Genesis 1 1 if you and I are to want to consider the beginning of us and mankind's
history and mankind's beginning and mankind's everything else we would be
foolish to exclude this very powerful best opening line in literature because
this right here is not talking about God in terms of the beginnings but about
everything that we know and can observe and can experience and can hope in and
can claim and can accept and grasp and receive and touch and smell you name it.
It starts with this record and right at the very beginning God has already been
and I love that. I love thinking that God doesn't have a beginning because
everything that we know has a beginning and an end and God does not. I also don't
lose any sleep over trying to figure it out. I don't lose any sleep over that.
What we also find here our second main point that that is extremely crucial to
our from the beginning idea is not just that God is there and that he exists and
he pre-exists and he began things but that that beginning of things is unique
to the God of heaven because what we read in Genesis 1 1 is that God doesn't
just simply exist and he doesn't just simply make he creates and why why do I
draw that distinction why is it necessary to draw the distinction in
Hebrew we have two words for making things one is granted to humans so that's
like humans and God that's making building fashioning shaping if you cut
down a tree and shave it down and make planks and take those planks and build a
table you have made a table that's the verb you would use in the Hebrew it's
the verb that is used when God causes Adam to fall asleep and takes the rib
and makes Eve out of that rib that is a building a fashioning a shaping from
something into something else there is one verb though that is only credited to
God bara that is different than making that is different than building that is
creating that is the full understanding that God does not require material to
then cause or to have more come out of creating bara is only given to God you
and I cannot create now we use that word but in the biblical sense we cannot
create we can imagine and and make something but we cannot imagine and then
it's there we cannot imagine and speak it and it happens we cannot will
ourselves upon something and then it appears God can and that is a very
awesome distinction when God creates God does something that cannot be given to
anything else and it separates him from other claimed gods you can find this in
the structure and you're just gonna have to forgive me I'm gonna be a little bit
of a Hebrew nerd for just a moment that was my favorite of that was one of my
favorite subjects in my in my undergrad I learned I took three semesters worth of
it and then I taught it for two years and then I did teaching assistant with an
Old Testament professor who taught me the Hebrew and he's got I believe two
PhDs in ancient writings and so on so I liked it I asked a lot of questions
about it I kind of ate it up it's a little bit where I kind of go into a
little bit of a literary nerd it was the first verse that I memorized in Hebrew
b'reishit bara Elohim et ha-shemayim v'et ha'aretz that's Genesis 1 1 all
right I like it it rolls off the tongue very beautifully to me what we need to
see here and this is how in the Hebrew we get a couple of incredible things
that don't really come clear in the English one the use of the word Elohim
the word Elohim is the most used name for God in the Old Testament we have L
Eloah and Elohim these are the generic God or gods when you come across them
in your Bible Elohim is used more than two thousand seven hundred and fifty
times and it is used interchangeably with the God of heaven and the other
gods lowercase G that the Bible talks about as a plural and this is important
Elohim is a plural word we can think of you know a person or people people is
the plural L is singular Elohim is plural okay as the plural it can refer to
pagan deities in which case the Bible translates it lowercase G gods and we
can think of the commandment in Exodus 20 verse 3 that says you shall have no
other gods before me that's Elohim okay it can also refer to the God of Israel
well how do we draw the distinction one when the God when Elohim is used with
the God of Israel you have a plural word paired with a singular verb and a little
into the grammar they don't do that in Hebrew if it's plural one the other one's
plural if it's singular one the other one's singular so it would be like it
would be like this we is sitting in church we don't do that in English right
we are God would be a they is in church and that's why we can see this plural
with a singular verb bara the Greeks understood this in the in the
Septuagint which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament they
use Hothos that's that's the singular word for God they understood that Moses
was not writing about the God of heaven in a in a plurality but in a singular
ness and the Greeks got that whoever translated it then those scholars what
we see if in this and this this is we're gonna we're gonna draw this together we
don't want to make something out of it that it's not the use of God here in the
plural is not a conversation on the Trinity at all not one bit the church
the understanding of the Trinity that triune in one person God didn't really
come about until the New Testament Christian era in the Old Testament there
is an idea of plurality with God but not trinity Ness with God does that make
sense what we're reading here is a very common practice in the Hebrew where the
plural it's called the Hebrew plural the Hebrew plural is speaking to the
grandness of God the largeness of God the vastness and the infinite power of
God plurality in the Hebrew especially in relation to God is size strength
awesomeness of God and that makes really good sense if we understand if we
accept that what we're reading is an account not on theological existence but
an account on creation the account on creation necessitates a grand and
powerful and mighty God it necessitates a God that is pre-existing and larger
than what he is about to do and in the Hebrew that comes through by using
pluralness it's a literary convention that reflects special reverence in other
words it is fair to say though that the creation account does imply that there's
plurality we see that the Spirit of God is mentioned in the next verse you go
farther on come let us make man in our image right so we have an
understanding that what it's not a single entity in this point but it's one
and not the other the regular appearance of Elohim rather than Adonai or Yahweh
the actual you know the name the special holy name of God is due to the
theological importance of this verse and that is as creator I don't know I
Yahweh is covenantal mostly in use God is creator creation extols God's
transcendence and the power of his spoken word so Elohim is used and when
Moses was writing this in the hills of Moab and God has inspired upon him I
believe maybe with this panoramic vision of this is happening and God is there
and things are spoken and it happens and that was already a time when you had
other cultures with other gods and to write it this way is to separate from to
sanctify to set apart as correct and holy and reverential the God of heaven
who created Barah the heavens and the earth and if God cannot create if God
cannot make something out of nothing that has very serious ramifications for
you and I because if it's from the beginning to the end what implications
does that have for us today well God as pre-existing creator is necessary for
salvation it's he this understanding is necessary for our salvation if you are a
cosmic accident then who cares what moral decisions you make or anybody else
makes if if all of what we have around here happened because the cosmos is
birthed at some point then really what does it matter if some genocidal maniac
decides to wipe out a race because according to that understanding of how
things came to be he would be correct the survival of the fittest if God's
pre-existence as creator didn't happen and we were all just kind of here or
God maybe started things but he didn't manage things then pure subjectivity
would also be correct and no one would know what right and wrong is your right
is as equal as my right and by that I don't mean rights I mean being right
being correct about something and if that's the case you can't have laws you
can't arrest people you can't stop murders you can't in fact you shouldn't
because you would be violating nature if you do that because there is nothing
that we observe in nature that actually tells us about morality issues or ethical
issues you don't really see that I can only come from a God who is apart from
nature he is not bound by what he is created and he is not infused into what
he has created you get rid of this pan pantheistic and panentheistic idea of
God's being in the chairs that we sit on because if that were the case y'all
should stand up that would be a little rude to God God is apart from what he's
created and he is at the beginning but how what does this mean in terms of our
salvation each one of us like we started with have a spiritual aspect to us God
desires us to search him out to find the uncaused God you need to find God at the
beginning of all of your considerations because without that beginning without
finding God you don't have hope beyond what we currently have if you can go
back through your whole life and you can go back through the many different
options and you haven't found God then you might as well stop searching and you
might as well give up now the fact that God is already in the beginning and the
fact that God creates out of nothing he's the only one who can do that means
that at some point in your life go back through all the mistakes that you have
made go back through all the good things you have done go go as go wherever you
need to kind of search and look and when you find God he is already there waiting
for you to find him and if he's already there in the beginning before you've
made a mess of things then he can also barah in your life the Bible speaks
clear create in me a clean heart that creating can only happen by a God who
knew you before the earth was formed who was there before the earth was formed
and before your parents ever found each other you have to find God to find
salvation and you have to find a God who can completely fix you root and core at
the beginning of you to actually have victory over sin since sin entered into
this world we understand we firmly believe the Bible teaches it's not just
actions it's a part of us we have that nature and only the God who can create
nature out of nothing can can can clean out and overcome and strengthen and save
from a nature that we can't shape or or affect on our own we cannot cause upon
our sinful nature God can your salvation depends on you discovering the God who
pre-exists creation who wants to reveal himself to you are you searching for him
are you looking have you found him are you hanging on to him the theory that
God did not create matter when he brought the world into existence is
without foundation and the formation of our world God was not indebted to
pre-existing matter on the contrary all things material or spiritual stood up
before the Lord of Jehovah at his voice and were created for his own purpose the
heavens and all the host of them the earth and all things they're in are not
only the work of his hand they came into existence by the breath of his mouth and
so when Jesus claims that all of heaven and earth has been given to him all of
a sudden that means that he is your Lord and Savior he is your creator in your
life and whatever you're struggling with he can burrow in you what you need for
salvation for eternity that reshaped and remade nature that we all have it's also
very closely connected to salvation because and we could all say this with
me we are saved by grace through faith and our Lord Jesus Christ if you read
Hebrews 11 3 we also read this through faith we understand that the worlds were
framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear if you are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and
by faith we accept what Genesis 1 1 is saying then by faith that creation
account carries you into your Savior experience and we all need that my
friends we all need that the psalmist writes this by the word of the Lord were
the heavens made and all the hosts of them by the breath of his mouth he spake
and it was done he commanded and it stood fast and what am I compared to
the galaxies out there if he can do all of that I can claim he can do it in my
life as well I want to encourage you today from the beginning to the end God
is there from the beginning to the end God creates and he recreates and for his
most loved creation on this planet he will recreate you as many times as you
go to him it is not a one-and-done from the beginning to the end God is
interested in his creation and from the beginning to the end he's going to keep
creating on us and in us and and with us until ultimately in the end we get to
observe a new creation of the heavens and the earth I am looking forward to it I
am looking forward to our consideration of God from the beginning to the end and
its implications for us I encourage you today as you are thinking about what you
might do in this new year and the last time I was here we talked about
resolutions and kind of how to make goals I would encourage you today in
fact not not I who am I don't do it because of me God implores you to seek
him this year if you're going to make a goal of anything this year if you're
going to choose a literary anything this year and when there are great books out
there it's not pastor Aaron who am I I'm dust God implores you I have revealed
myself to you I have shaped and created everything find me don't find me ten
years from now start searching and find me today begin with the best literary
work the Bible and seek he who created you that is the best goal the best
beginning leading to the best end that you could ever hope or ask for let's
pray heavenly father we thank you again that you revealed yourself to us we
thank you that in your divine will and purpose you saw fit to not leave this
corner of your universe empty and stagnant and in chaos we thank you that
in your divine will you spoke and were present at some point in the beginning
and before the beginning and in your infinite wisdom and your infinite love
you are not satisfied with the void you desired to create to call into existence
to bring about this world and the heavens and all that we not only know
but because of your love we get to enjoy but all of that would be for naught if
we didn't find you so I pray that according to your will you would reveal
yourself to us in a powerful and personal way today and tomorrow and all
the way to the end when you come to take us finally home Lord I pray that your
Holy Spirit would impress upon us to seek after you that your Holy Spirit
would guide us as we seek that he would protect us from distractions and
confusion I pray that your Holy Spirit would bless us with the power necessary
to overcome our stumbling blocks and I pray that you would pour out grace and
faith into our lives that we might seek after you believe in you and claim you
as our own so that because we accept that you have claimed us as your own or
I thank you for hearing our prayer please go with us today we pray amen