[0:00] Genesis chapter 1. I'm sure that you would agree that these are important words to get right, right from the beginning. And Brother Colin will come and share with us more of why these words are so important to us.
[0:17] Genesis 1, and we'll read through chapter 2 and verse 4. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty.
[0:29] Darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be light. Light, and there was light.
[0:40] And God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.
[0:55] And God said, let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it.
[1:07] And it was so. God called the expanse sky. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day. And God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.
[1:24] And it was so. God called the dry ground land, and he gathered water. And the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
[1:36] Then God said, let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so.
[1:49] The land produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it, according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
[2:01] And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. And let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years.
[2:16] Let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so. God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.
[2:32] He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and separate light from darkness.
[2:44] And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, let the water team with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.
[2:58] So God created the great creatures of the sea, and every living and moving thing with which the water teams, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.
[3:11] And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in number, and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.
[3:24] There was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day. And God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds, livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.
[3:40] And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds.
[3:52] And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
[4:12] So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number.
[4:26] Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth, and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food.
[4:45] And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food.
[4:56] And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
[5:13] By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
[5:31] Brother Colin, come and preach the word to us. Good evening. I bring my greetings from Grace Baptist Church in Warsaw.
[5:44] And I also just want to take a moment and say thank you all for partnering with our CTA planning team and making CTA happen. I figured I could take this moment just to say we're grateful for the ways you prayed for us, provided food, and then hosted this last Sunday.
[5:58] We just feel that it was a privilege to consider you all partners in that ministry. So thank you for that. Let's turn now to the word of the Lord and to Genesis chapter one. We all love a good story, don't we?
[6:11] We love a story that captures our attention. We love a story that grips us. And many of the best stories, the most gripping stories, are stories with good beginnings.
[6:22] In fact, I don't know if we could really name a book that is a good book that doesn't have a good beginning, because we probably didn't get through the beginning because it was bad. A good book has a good beginning. And Genesis is that good beginning to the great story of God.
[6:37] God's great story is a story that captures our attention. It's a story that grips us. And in that story, it begins very, very well in Genesis chapter one. This is a story of God pursuing relationship with his people for his glory.
[6:54] The great story of scripture tells of God's work all through human history to bring his people back to himself, to perfect harmony with his people. And it all starts in Genesis chapter one.
[7:07] Genesis is more, though, than just a beginning to God's great story. It's really the foundation. And from it flows so much of what we know of who God is, how we are to relate to him, who we are in relationship to him.
[7:21] All of that finds its foundation in Genesis. Now, Genesis was first written to the people of Israel by their leader Moses. And he was most likely writing it to them when they were on the verge of entering the land that God had promised to them.
[7:37] They came out of Egypt and they were about to enter into the promised land. And here, they're given Genesis. Now, Genesis is really the beginning of a longer story, a story that covers more than just the book of Genesis.
[7:51] It's really a story that covers Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And Genesis kind of serves as the introduction to those other four books.
[8:01] Those other four books really capture much of Israel's history, tells them how they got to this point when they're about to enter the land. And Genesis helps them know something of their past, maybe even their distant past.
[8:15] And it serves the purpose of telling Israel where they came from, of tracing their history all the way back to creation itself. And so in that sense, Genesis was written to engage both the head, but it was also written to engage the heart.
[8:30] You see, it was written to engage the head in the sense that it tells us how the world came to be. It tells us how we can understand who God is and how we relate to him. It tells us how we should understand and shape and form our worldview.
[8:45] It counters all sorts of alternate theories about how the world came to be. And it counters all sorts of philosophies and ideas about who man is and what man's place is in this world.
[8:57] And so in that sense, it engages our minds. But it also should engage our hearts. If we walk away from Genesis and all that we learn from Genesis chapter 1 is how everything came to be, who God is, what our role is in this world, if we only think of it from a head knowledge perspective, then we've missed it in this service.
[9:16] Because the book of Genesis should leave us in wonder. It should leave us in awe. It should leave us marveling at a God who would create us to be in relationship with him. And so like the Israelites, we face all kinds of questions in this life.
[9:32] We face big questions like, who am I? And where did I come from? And what is my purpose? And these aren't new questions. These are questions that have been raised from the beginning of time.
[9:43] And Israel was asking those same questions and they were hearing answers from the people in the surrounding nations. They were hearing answers to those questions. And we hear answers to those questions as well today.
[9:56] But the problem that Israel was running into and the problem that we often run into is those answers that we hear are often time to the exclusion of the God of the Bible. They're to the exclusion of the God who is revealed to us in Genesis.
[10:11] And so the Israelites are trying to answer these questions. They're trying to understand who they are and where they came from. And Genesis 1 gives us those answers. It tells us not of the story of gods and goddesses at war with each other trying to form this world.
[10:27] It tells us not of a world that came about through randomness and disorder and chaos. It tells us of a world in which God created everything orderly and he created it with great care and he created it with great compassion for his creation.
[10:43] And so the Israelites they would hear some really interesting stories. Stories in which they were told that the universe came about actually out of the carcass of a goddess who had been killed. It was a popular story of their day.
[10:55] They heard stories of gods and goddesses forming the universe in these preexistent tumultuous chaotic waters. These were violent stories. These were graphic stories. These were senseless stories.
[11:08] And then contrast those stories with the story given in Genesis. Genesis paints a very different picture of creation. One that should leave us in wonder and in awe of God for three reasons.
[11:21] And so we're going to see those three reasons as we kind of look through the text of Genesis. The first reason that we should be in awe of God is that God is presented to us as the eternal one. Genesis 1.1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
[11:36] Now truly this one verse could be an entire sermon on its own. In fact I was talking to a buddy of mine and he said that his pastor was about to preach through Genesis and this was as I was preparing to preach through Genesis. And I was going to do six sermons to cover the whole book and he said oh my pastor is going to do three sermons on the first verse.
[11:52] I mean it was like well there's a lot there isn't there? And we could spend that much time but we're not going to tonight. We're going to spend a little less time. And what we want to see here is our first reason that we can marvel at God that he is eternal.
[12:05] That he existed independently. He existed self-sufficiently without equal before all things came into existence. In the beginning God. He was already there.
[12:18] Before anything came about God was already on the scene. Moses assumes it. He assumes God was there in the beginning God had already been around.
[12:28] When he brought all things to be God was in complete control. He was self-existent. He was the eternal one. The uncreated creator. Now this simple truth differs immensely from both the creation stories of Israel's day and the creation stories or the origin stories of our day.
[12:49] The Bible does present a pantheon of gods and goddesses that are vying for superiority and that bring about bloodshed because of it. The Bible doesn't present a universe that came into existence through randomness or through disorder.
[13:03] The Bible presents an intelligent designer who is eternal. The Bible presents one who is self-existent. Who holds complete authority before anything else ever came into being.
[13:14] God exists and he has always existed before anything was even created.
[13:28] It was common for ancient creation myths in Israel's day for the gods and goddesses to kind of be intertwined with their creation. That the universe wasn't simply created by them but in many ways it was created from them.
[13:41] So gods and goddesses they represented different parts of the creation like the sky and the sea and the earth and so the gods and goddesses were really more a part of creation rather than supreme over creation.
[13:54] And even today when people talk about spirituality it's more about how God is among us or like us or just one of us. We kind of minimize God and his supremacy. We don't like the God of Genesis because we want God to be just one of us.
[14:07] We want to level the playing field. We like the idea of God being more a part of creation rather than supreme and sovereign over creation. And so even when people speak of spiritual things when people talk of God it's common to make him out to be smaller and to sound less significant than he is and to make ourselves sound bigger and more significant than we are.
[14:31] We like God made in our image rather than us made in his. But what a difference that we have here in Genesis chapter 1. The God of Genesis 1 is not like us.
[14:41] He is sovereign. He is supreme over us. He existed prior to all things. Genesis 1 simply assumes that before all things came to be there was God and God alone.
[14:53] He wasn't a part of creation. He didn't come from creation. He existed eternally before there was any creation. Before time and space began there was God. In the beginning God.
[15:04] God. Now a second way that Genesis ought to cause us to marvel is rooted in this idea that God speaks. So God existed before all things and then when all things come into existence God speaks them by his word.
[15:19] He calls all of creation into being. I mean look at just a few verses here. Verse 3 God says let there be light and it was so. Verse 6 God says let the waters gather together and let the dry land appear and it was so.
[15:31] Verse 11 God says let the earth sprout vegetation and it was so. Over and over again in the Genesis creation account God commands something to happen and it happens.
[15:43] Just like that. In fact if I counted correctly seven times God calls something into being and it happens. He speaks all things into existence. He creates everything with his words.
[15:54] He creates everything out of nothing. Contrast that with both ancient and modern origin stories. These are other these stories have watery chaos. They have primordial ooze.
[16:05] They have gods killing other gods to create the universe. They have gods creating other gods to create the universe. They have big bangs in billions of years but Genesis presents us with a God who speaks. By his word all things came into existence.
[16:21] Now in our society today there's all kinds of debate about how the world came to be. And over roughly the last century and a half evolution has kind of risen as the great contrast to the story of scripture.
[16:33] And for some Christians we've attempted then to reconcile evolution with creation and theistic evolution as the result. It's the idea that God actually put forward the evolutionary process but then intervened at just certain times like the creation of humanity.
[16:49] But it still allows for billions of years to have passed in order for the universe to develop to its current state. Now without necessarily getting into the nitty gritty details of the debate I just want to consider just one implication of holding to this view when it comes to how God created everything.
[17:07] When it comes to the fact that God speaks in scripture. Over and over again we've seen this reality. God speaks things into being in Genesis 1. And what is implied is that when God speaks it happens.
[17:19] When God says let there be light the narrator immediately says and there was light. The reader is left to assume that light came when God called it into being. And that's the pattern of scripture.
[17:30] When God speaks things happen. We could look at the example of Jesus himself. He spoke and things happened immediately. Consider the man with leprosy from Mark chapter 1.
[17:41] He came to Jesus and he said if you will you can make me clean. And Jesus responded he touched him and he said I will be clean. And the text doesn't say then that the man went away and after a few weeks the leprosy left him.
[17:53] No. It says that immediately he was cleansed. Jesus also spoke to the wind and the waves and he commanded them to be still.
[18:05] And the narrator followed these words by saying and the wind ceased and there was a great calm. I mean imagine if he had said be still and then half an hour later the storm subsided. I mean I could say be still and half an hour later a storm goes away and everybody's like yeah I mean that's basically how storms work right?
[18:19] They go away after a little while. But no Jesus did it and what did the disciples do? They were amazed and they were terrified. They had seen no one who had done something like this before. They said who then is this that even the wind and the sea obey him?
[18:33] They were amazed and they were terrified because Jesus spoke and it happened. There's a story in the Old Testament that I think really gets at this point that when God speaks it happens. It's in 1 Kings 18.
[18:45] You can turn there. I'm going to summarize much of the story though. It's the story of Elijah's confrontation with the prophets of Baal. So the people of God were wavering about who they believed was the true God.
[18:56] Maybe it's Yahweh the God of Israel but maybe it's Baal and maybe we should worship him. And so Elijah says well let's have a test. He's a prophet of God and he says I will go up against the prophets of Baal and I will set up a sacrifice and the prophets of Baal will set up a sacrifice and we will each call to our respective gods and whoever's God comes down and sets these sacrifices ablaze that's the true God.
[19:22] And the people said yeah that sounds good let's do that. And so hundreds of prophets of Baal gather and Elijah gathers. And this is what the prophets of Baal they do. The text says they called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon saying oh Baal answer us.
[19:38] But there was no voice and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made and they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until the blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed they raved on but there was no voice.
[19:53] Elijah in turn says oh Lord God of Abraham Isaac and Israel let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word.
[20:04] Answer me oh Lord answer me that this people may know that you oh Lord are God and that you have turned their hearts back. And this is what happens immediately after.
[20:15] Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and licked up the water that was in the trench. Now I realize that this is a little bit different from Genesis 1 because Elijah speaks and it happens but Elijah is the spokesman for God and when he spoke God brought it into being.
[20:33] Then consider the prophets of Baal. They never do get Baal to send down fire because I mean let's be honest Baal isn't real but really to heighten the story the prophets go on and on for hours and hours.
[20:47] It's like when someone says check this out and they want to do like some trick or they want to do some kind of skill and they want to show it to you and they try the first time and they mess it up and they're like okay wait let me try again and at first you're like excited to see him do it but after like the second time the third time the fourth time pretty soon you're just kind of like embarrassed for them and you're like please I hope you can do this just so this can stop because I can't handle watching you fail over and over again but God doesn't work this way God doesn't say hold on a sec let me try again give me a minute I think I can get it this next time God answers right away God's prophet speaks and immediately it happens the same is true here in Genesis the most straightforward reading of the text is that God speaks and it happens I mean imagine with me for a moment that God spoke and it took millions maybe billions of years for it to happen wouldn't that be less spectacular I think one commentator helpfully put it this way and God said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds and after 387,492,871 attempts
[21:50] God finally made a mouse that worked part of the wonder and the majesty of God in the creation account of Genesis 1 is the orderly sovereign methodical fashion in which God creates all things randomness randomness is part and parcel of the origin stories of Israel's day randomness is part and parcel of the stories that we hear today over millions of years so it goes life developed but a God who speaks things into existence is hard to reconcile!
[22:21] with a theory that is rooted in disorder and so I hope that we can see how we think about creation truly does affect how we think about God the God of Genesis speaks all things into being and that's a God who is to be worshipped that's a God who should stir our affections to praise and so we see that what God says carries weight the very word of God is powerful and effective and this is something that the New Testament authors pick up on the writer of Hebrews says this in Hebrews 11 3 by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible or listen back in the Old Testament to Psalm 33 verses 6 and 9 by the word of the Lord the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth all their host for he spoke and it came to be he commanded and it stood firm this connection between the word of God and creation is really brought together by John in his gospel he starts it off the very introduction to his gospel he connects all the way back to Genesis and he connects
[23:25] Jesus to creation and to God speaking he says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God he was in the beginning with God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made so John connects the creative work of God with the very word of God and he says this word of God this agent or this instrument of creation through whom all things came into being is Jesus Christ and so we see that when God speaks things happen when he speaks all of creation comes into being through his son what a marvelous God who creates with such awesome power and might and creativity the pre-incarnate Christ the one who would one day take on flesh enter this world to save us from our sins was also present in this world at its creation bringing all things into being so we've seen two reasons that the creation story should leave us in awe of God we've seen that God is eternal and we've seen that God speaks all things into being now both of those reasons for awe are really rooted in God's transcendence in his otherness in his being distinct from creation he isn't intertwined with creation he isn't dependent on creation he is sovereign over all that he has made totally self-existent totally self-sufficient without any need for his creation we see in his transcendence his great majesty his great power his great might we see a God who is truly worthy of worship because he is so unlike us in those ways but it's not just
[25:08] God's transcendence that should leave us in awe it's also his eminence his nearness to us the fact that he would draw close to us we see a third reason to marvel at God in Genesis 1 when we consider his creation of humanity remember the Israelites would have originally heard this creation story in their own context with other origin stories competing for their attention and in many of these stories the deities were behind the creation of humanity which would parallel God being behind the creation of humanity but in these rival stories the themes of violence and chaos abounded in one story humanity was actually made from the blood of a God who was killed in another story the gods created humanity to work for them because they didn't want to do menial tasks like dig irrigation trenches which I guess all the gods were farmers or something but they didn't want to do that work and so they made humans to do it for them these stories go so far as to say that humanity was created to bear the gods burdens in other words humanity was created as slaves for God to do the work for the gods that they didn't want to do and what a contrast to the creation account of Genesis in Genesis we see a God who draws near to his creation who desires to bond with his creation who wants his creation to delight in him do you think in those other stories humanity was expected to be fond of the gods no they would have hated the gods they would have felt the gods were so antagonistic towards them and yet the God of the Bible is a God who wants his creation to delight in him we see that in the fact that he made us for special relationship with him look again at verses 26 and 27 then God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them now the Bible doesn't explicitly define for us what it means to be made in the image of God but from this passage it would seem to mean that in some sense we're created for special relationship with him nothing else in the created order receives the same attention receives the same care from God as humans do all of chapter 2 in Genesis is given to this careful unpacking of the creation of humanity in Genesis chapter 1
[27:33] God speaks all of the rest of creation into being but with humanity he takes special care he makes the man for the dust of the ground and then he says that he breathes the breath of life into man and then from the man's side he creates the woman he takes special care with both the man and the woman and does their creation in a unique way and so we see that humanity is the crown of God's creation it's the masterpiece of his artistic design we enjoy a special relationship to God unlike anything else in the created order now we also see God's great love for us we see his eminence in that he gives us purpose from a big picture perspective our ultimate purpose is to glorify God but Genesis chapters 1 and chapter 2 give us something of what that looks like they unpack what it looks like to glorify God and really what they do is they answer a baseline question why am I here what's my purpose and they explain it to us beginning in verse 28 Genesis 1 28 and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth and so we see here that we were created to be God's representatives we were created for a unique purpose by God now other parts of creation are told to be fruitful and multiply but only humanity is told to subdue the earth and to have dominion over it and that's part of our commissioning to rule over the earth as good stewards of what God has given to us now some they've twisted this verse and they've used it to say that they can abuse creation that we can do what we like because we rule over it but again the context gives us some understanding of what it means to subdue the earth and to rule over it in chapter 2 verse 15 listen to what the Lord says or listen to what the Lord does the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it so the first man Adam was given the task of tending the garden of cultivating the garden of working the earth that the Lord had given to him now that's just one example from Genesis of what it means to subdue the earth we're to cultivate the resources that God has given to us just like Adam did but that's just one application there it's an agricultural application we can really expand it beyond just that to see that we're to develop whatever domain
[30:00] God has given to us and to make it flourish whether in the home or in the workplace or anywhere else he gives us purpose he gives us work to accomplish and it's all for his glory and then finally we see God's great love for us and his provision for us in one story that Israel would have heard it was said that humanity was created to provide food for the gods not like humanity was going to be eaten by the gods but that they were supposed to work the ground so that the gods could then eat the fruit of the ground but in Genesis we see the inverse God provides food for humanity I think it's kind of easy for us to gloss over like oh yeah and God made the food for them and we keep moving but like that would have hit hard for the Israelites they would have thought wait he's providing for us verse 29 says of chapter 1 and God said behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with fruit in its seed you shall have them for food and so he shows his love for us by ensuring that we have all we need to be sustained and even after humanity falls into sin in Genesis chapter 3
[31:07] God continues to provide not this time with food but with clothing for Adam and Eve to cover their guilt and their shame and so in Genesis 1 we see a good God who loves us we see a God who desires special relationship with us who gives us purpose who provides for us consider then the creation of humanity in Genesis chapter 1 and marvel at the ways that the transcendent creator God draws near to us and displays his love for us that should move us to worship as it ought to have moved the Israelites to worship I appreciate how one commentator summarized how Israel would have received this story he says this the creation narrative would not only correct Israel's worldview but also give them good hope that they were not at the mercy of fickle pagan gods but were under the protection of their sovereign God the creator of heaven and earth now if we're being honest we're probably not being confronted with competing fickle gods and goddesses in our lives today but we are being confronted with the reality of say evolution and within that we do see a fickleness to it fickle mother nature that mother nature can operate however she pleases and that we are at her disposal an origin story that is absent of God will produce fear it'll produce uncertainty it'll produce hopelessness in us the God of Genesis is one who graciously lovingly rules over his creation with absolute perfect control he's a God who sovereignly loves his creation for his glory the ancient near eastern myths were teaching the Israelites that humans were held in contempt by the gods evolution teaches that there is no God and morality is a social construct whatever you believe if it's devoid of the God of Genesis you're entrusting your life to a system of thought that is fluid that changes that's uncertain but in Genesis 1 we learn of a God who is constant compassionate and in control he creates humanity not to relieve himself of responsibilities not to relieve himself of burdens but to enjoy special relationship with him he doesn't seek after his glory through a harsh cruel tyrannical reign he receives glory through a gentle benevolent kind-hearted reign so what is it about
[33:34] Genesis 1 that should stir up heartfelt worship in us well God existed before all things God spoke all things into being through his son and God created us for special relationship with him Genesis 1 isn't just meant to shape our world view as much as it certainly does but it is also meant to shape our hearts to move our hearts and our minds to worship our God so what then should our worship look like in general terms Genesis 1 should move us to proclaim God's great worth and his great glory and that is something that we do in corporate worship on Sundays we gather together we proclaim his great worth and we proclaim his great glory we do that together if our hearts are in it when we gather and yet that outworking should then flow into our day-to-day lives how we worship doesn't just end here we worship through our lives and I think that there are ways that we can think more specifically about what our worship should look like so I want to unpack that in just three more specific ways how do we unpack what it means to worship God if we read of God in Genesis 1 and we're enthralled with him we're moved by his majesty then what does it look like in our day-to-day lives here are three ways well first we should be moved to submit ourselves to him as our creator we owe our allegiance to him he is the creator we are the creation and if you read just two chapters later
[35:00] Genesis 3 that's where we get it flipped around and we think we can be in the place of God we think we know better than God let's take God's throne and we don't want to submit ourselves to him when we read Genesis 1 when we read Genesis 2 we see just how arrogant it is to think that our way is better that we are somehow wiser than God it's easy to get that inverse to flip the roles and try to dethrone God and so one practical implication of seeing God as he rightly is of seeing ourselves as we rightly are is to submit ourselves to him is to it should cause us to desire to walk in obedience to his ways especially when we see the posture of his heart toward us he is a kind God who has created us for a loving relationship with him and so a heart move to awe inspired worship should submit to the king over all creation in a similar way our worship can also work itself out in trusting God even in an uncertain world when life is hard when we're faced with struggles that we can't see past when we experience hard things that we can't understand or that we don't see purpose in worry and anxiety and fear can grip us but the more that we come to know and understand the God of Genesis 1 the better that we can trust and rest in him this is the God who has always existed this is the God who literally spoke all things into being this is the God who made us to enjoy special relationship with him the more that we can marvel at him the more that we can take refuge in him when life is tough and this is why it's so important to rightly understand who God is if we are made in his image then we understand our place with him but if we make God into our image if he's just one of us then he can't be of much help in bringing us through those trials if we try to level the playing field and just talk of spirituality and fail to see the transcendence of God the otherness of God the ways in which God is sovereign over all things then we end up downplaying his ability to see us through the struggles and the trials of life and so the more that we rightly understand who God is the more our worship can work itself out in developing greater and greater trust in our creator God and then the third and final way
[37:20] I'd like to consider how we can unpack what it means to worship God is to consider then the ways that we treat others we saw in Genesis 1 and 2 that God made humanity in his image and by doing that he showed his special love and his special concern for us and then in light of that we should then consider how we treat others who are also made in God's image if we are truly moved to worship God in Genesis 1 then we'll show dignity and respect to those who are made in his image now that's easy to live out with people that we get along with that we live alongside that we love and enjoy in our lives it's a little bit harder to demonstrate towards those that we disagree with towards those that we don't see eye to eye with towards those that we maybe don't have common interests with or maybe we think differently than it's harder to demonstrate towards them so consider people in your life that you struggle to get along with maybe it's an immediate person in your life maybe somebody at work maybe someone in your neighborhood maybe it's a whole demographic a people group maybe it's people that you don't even know but you've just seen on the news or you've just read about on social media and you get frustrated by them maybe it's people that you disagree with politically maybe it's people who are living out sinful choices maybe it's people who have different religious ideals or theological beliefs you name it the question is how do you treat them now I'm not talking about embracing the hyper tolerance that is promoted all around us
[38:45] I'm not saying that we need to agree with people that we need to condone sin I'm not saying that we should become relativists and say hey you do your thing I'll do mine no treating others as image bearers is totally different what they're doing may be wrong in the eyes of God what they may believe may be off from the truth of God but that doesn't change how we treat those who disagree with us because as we marvel at a God who made us in his image as we worship a God who seeks relationship with us a natural outworking of that worship is to treat others made in his image with dignity and respect so Genesis 1 is the beginning of the grand story of scripture but it's not just the beginning we've seen that it's really the foundation it asks and it answers big questions of life who am I why am I here what's my purpose and it engages both our heads and our hearts and so maybe we come away with either a newfound or renewed sense of awe inspired worship worship that impacts the way that we live because Genesis 1 was not given just to craft and to shape our world view
[39:47] Genesis 1 was given to warm our hearts with deep affection and love for God a God who has always existed a God who spoke all things into being and a God who desires unique special relationship with us and so as we think on these truths from Genesis 1 may God work in us by his spirit that great love and that great affection for him let's pray heavenly father we do thank you that you have given us your word and you have revealed yourself to us in it we thank you that we have seen the ways in which you are an awe inspiring creator God lord we pray that you would make us to be a people who worship you even as we enter into this next week make us to be a people who submit to you who love you and who desire to serve you in every way we pray all of these things in Jesus name amen