5/19/19 Genesis 1:1-2:4a “Genesis 1: God Made the World!”

17 May 5/19/19 Genesis 1:1-2:4a “Genesis 1: God Made the World!”

5/19/19    Genesis 1:1-2:4a        “Genesis 1: God Made the World!”

As I have already mentioned, we will be doing a sermon series on Genesis this summer and it won’t necessarily be in the proper order according to the Bible.  We know that God is with us in three parts, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  I thought that what better way to look at this than by looking at the beginning.  Everything starts in Genesis.  If you don’t believe in the first couple of chapters in Genesis, then you have a ways to go to be considered a Christian.  And that is ok because we are all on this journey together.  We started this series a couple of weeks ago when we talked about Noah and how important he was.  Today we will be looking at the first of two accounts of how life began.  I have heard it said that these two accounts of the beginning of humankind are in contradiction to themselves and therefore the Bible cannot be true.  If you look closely at this you will see that these are really just two different accounts of the same story with the second account focusing on when God made humans.  There is no contradiction here.  As a matter of fact and I do say fact, there are no contradictions in the Bible.  So let’s take a look at this first poetic creation story and see what God is trying to tell us through it.

Science has grappled with creation since the time of Darwin.  Before Darwin everyone believed in the Bible so there was no problem.  Anyway that was the way it was for Allan Sandage who had been an atheist since childhood.  He was an astronomer who gazed through telescopes at the stars trying to figure out the beginnings of the universe.  He figured out how fast the universe was expanding by watching distant stars.  But he was plagued by mysteries that could not be answered by knowing what supernovas were doing.  The biggest mystery that plagued him was why was there something when there should be nothing.  He could find no answer through reasoning.  So finally, when he was about 50 years old, this atheist turned to God for the answer.  He concluded, “It was my science that drove me to the conclusion that the world is much more complicated than can be explained by science.  It is only through the supernatural that I can understand the mystery of existence.”  Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are going to take a look at the very foundation of our faith as it is presented to us in the very first chapter of the Bible.  More and more scientists are becoming believers all the time as science doesn’t seem to hold all the answers.  I have told you before that science was given to us by God so that we could learn more about God.  Remember that!

As we look at the first verse we see that God created the heavens and earth.  God did this.  Science didn’t do this.  Evolution didn’t do this.  God did this.  And He did this because He loves us.  He gave us this place to live so that we can have a sense of security.  We can be secure in the fact that God is there, He made this because He loves us and He is in charge of everything.  We are in charge of very little.  This is like when we were children.  We had parents or someone who was in charge of us and took care of us.  We had a place to live, food to eat, and clothing to wear.  We had security.  And this is what God is giving us.  We have a place to grow.  Unfortunately, sin came along and ruined this for all of us since the Garden of Eden.  I will save that sermon for another time.

On the first day, God made light and darkness.  Then he made the sky and the water and the land.  He very methodically went about and created everything that we see today.  And God did this in 6 days.  I’m not going to go into this aspect of the story too much today.  You can believe that it happened in 6 actual days or you can think erroneously that the days might have been longer because we are dealing in God’s time.  But this isn’t the important issue today.  The important part is that you believe that God did this.

For decades we have been teaching our children about the so called facts of evolution.  There is no one listening today that hasn’t been exposed to it.  Darwin started all of this about 160 years ago.  We are now told that if we believe anything else we are just plain stupid.

We took a group of students to see the movie, Expelled, when it first came out several years ago and I highly recommend this movie for everyone.  Anyway, there was a renowned evolutionary scientist who was interviewed that said only an idiot would believe anything other than evolution.  Yet in a poll done by Newsweek and Beliefnet, it was found that 80% of people in this country believe in God.  It would seem to me that if we insist on teaching this evolutionary propaganda in our schools, then we are doing a pretty poor job of teaching.  Or maybe it is God’s way of telling us that once again we are wrong.  Please remember that what science believes today is totally different than what they believed 50 years ago.  And in another 50 years they will have disproven many of the facts, the facts they know today.  Science is always changing and that is good.  However the Bible has never changed and that is even better!

I would like to illustrate this a little better.  I’m going to talk about the Big Bang theory which incidentally, most scientists now don’t believe that this is what happened.  For many years they thought that the universe began from a tiny molecule or maybe it was an atom.  This was all there was in existence until one day it blew up, hence the name Big Bang.  Anyway, it blew up in a sudden flash of light and all planets and galaxies and everything came from this one small particle.  Remember this happened in a flash of light.  If we read in verse 3, “And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.”  Just like that!  This fits with science.

It’s beginning to look more and more like God may have been involved in any type of theory like this.  Another huge problem with this theory was ‘where did that initial atom come from?’  Science had no explanation for this.  So science dumped this theory and they have no real explanation as to where or how everything started.  Richard Dawkins, who is considered to be one of the smarter men in the world and an adamant atheist, now thinks that there may have been a creator from somewhere.  He says that this creator came from an alien species that is far superior to us.  So what are you going to believe?  Did we come from some space ship or did we come from a living, loving God who cares that much for us?

Just for fun, let’s pursue this space ship a little.  If we watch TV we often see shows like Star Trek, Stargate and other Sci-Fi shows where there are all kinds of life in the universe.  There is even a Sci-Fi channel.  Science fiction writers want us to believe that there are thousands if not millions of places where there can be life like us in this galaxy.  And of course there are many galaxies.  But let’s look at this a little closer.

In order for there to be life on earth, the axis must be at a certain angle or there is not life.  One degree different than now and everything dies.  We also have to be a certain distance from the sun or there is no life.  There has to be a certain gravitational pull or no life.  There has to be a certain temperature and atmosphere.  In order for there to be life, we have to orbit the sun in a circular fashion.  Did you know that most galaxies are elliptical, not circular?  This means that everything in those galaxies orbits in an elliptical fashion.  In other words, we could be a million miles from our sun in this part of the orbit and 10 million miles from the sun over here.  Life would be impossible under these conditions.  The Milky Way is one of the few circular galaxies.  There are many more precise conditions that have to be met exactly before there can be life.  If any one of these conditions isn’t met, then there is no life.  We can deduce from all this data, that there are not many places where there is life in the universe.  There are actually very few places and there is a good scientific chance that we are the only place where there is life.  Solid science leads us to this conclusion.

Michael Behe would call this irreducibly complex.  What he means is that if all of these conditions aren’t meant, then there is no life.  He is a molecular scientist who compares irreducible complexity to a mouse trap.  A mouse trap has 5 or 6 parts to it.  If any one of those parts is missing, then the trap doesn’t work.  It is the same way with our conditions as it is with molecules.

We have been told that over millions of years we have evolved.  Let’s break this argument down a little and consider the bacterial flagellum.  This is a tiny little biological machine that moves through fluid.  It has a tail that spins like a propeller at thousands of rpm’s and can stop in a quarter of a turn and go the opposite direction at thousands of rpm’s.  We have not even come close to copying the efficiency of this machine.  It is made up of 30 some proteins.  If any one of these proteins is eliminated, then the flagellum doesn’t work at all.  The chances of these 30 some proteins coming together naturally are billions and billions to one.

Now we have 100 trillion cells in our bodies.  If the chances are impossible for a flagellum to come together naturally, then think of the impossibility of all these 100 trillion body cells coming together next to each other in the exact proper order.  Dr. Behe came to the only conclusion that is possible.  God created life.

I could go on and on about how science has discovered that there is a creator, God, and evolution is all wrong.  If you want to read more on this subject, read a book called The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel.  It is a bit technical but fascinating.  And after doing some research on this topic I am left with only one question.  Why do we allow our schools to teach a bunch of lies to our children?  Think about this question as you go about your business this week.  It is a question that I think we must answer.

So God made the world in this exact way because He loves us.  He made the world with a purpose in mind.  That purpose was to give us a place to live and a reason for us to live.  We were designed in the image of God to be faithful to God.  Remember this tomorrow morning when you look in the mirror.  You were made in the image of God.  And God is busy holding the world together and doing all kinds of things to help you if you only let him.  You can be thankful for having someone who is in charge of everything.  Without God overseeing everything, there would be no world.

And because of all of this, you are accountable to God for all that you do.  He is in charge.  This is one of the main reasons that we have non-believers and atheists.  They are bound and determined that they are in charge and will not bow down to anyone or anything.  They feel it is a bad thing to be accountable.  They will find out.

I have never felt better than the day that I discovered that Jesus was in control of everything including me.  My life was a mess just like anyone else’s life who doesn’t know Jesus.  Satan makes you think that you are doing ok but you are not.  I gave Jesus everything as I confessed my sins.  And I still confess my sins every day.  And it is a lot easier to do it daily than to do a life’s worth.  This is where many people including atheists have a big problem.  If they would only realize that God made them and only wants what is the very best for them, maybe they could see the road to salvation.  Asking Jesus to take control of your life will be the best thing that will ever happen to you.

It is important to know that God is in charge of everything in this world.  You were made in His image so that you could follow Him, if you want to have the best and happiest life.  Maybe for some of the first part of this sermon you needed to be a scientist to understand, but not for this part.  Jesus wants all of us to be with Him as He leads us to eternity.  He wants the young and the old, the rich and the poor, the smart and the not so smart.  He wants all colors, races and religions.  He wants everyone and this book tells us how to live a more perfect life in Christ.

That is what this chapter is all about.  It is the foundation of everything we believe.  God made a world.  Then He made humans to live in it.  And finally He made life in Him through Jesus Christ.

And look where the Father, Son and Holy Spirit fit into all of this.  Notice in the beginning there were God and the Holy Spirit.  When you read the first chapter of John you read that Jesus was with God before the world began.  The Trinity has been present all along.

This has to be very comforting to us:  to know that God has always been there and He always will be there.  He made you to be in a relationship with Him, a personal relationship.  You do this by confessing your sins and asking Jesus to live in your heart.  Talk with Him today and walk with Him as He instructs you on how to have that good feeling inside.  Invite your friends, neighbors and family in on this also.  The closer you can get to Jesus, then the sooner you will know what you are supposed to do.  And that is what God made us for and this world.  Thank you Jesus for you omnipotence and your patience.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.