IN THE BEGINNING GOD (Genesis 1)! The Story of Us Part 1! Message #1333" Pastor Keith Stewart" June 25-26, 2016" " Expanded Message Resources!

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2 1 IN THE BEGINNING GOD (Genesis 1)! The Story of Us Part 1! Message #1333 Pastor Keith Stewart June 25-26, 2016 Expanded Message Resources! Our job as Christians is always to begin from the very beginning. Karl Barth, Christian theologian The New Testament refers to the book of Genesis about 200 times and half of those references are to the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Jesus Christ quoted or referred to each of the first seven chapters of Genesis. 1. YOU ARE A CHARACTER IN GOD S STORY! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1.1 It is no surprise that God is the first sentence of the Bible. - Derek Kidner God is not a character in your story. You are a character in God s story. - Justin Buzzard > In the beginning, the uncreated God created. > God was solely responsible for creating. The word create in Scripture 1. It is only used to describe producing something new. 2. God Himself is the one creating. 3. It is never used with any reference to the materials used. > This world was the special focus of God s creation. 2. GOD CHANGES CHAOS INTO COSMOS!

3 2 Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid... When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around foaming, at the mouth. Mark , 20 > Structure of the chapter CHART 1 CHART 2 exalted prose narrative. - Dr. Jack Collins, Professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary [In a] crescendo the narrator devotes more time and space to each day until the climactic apex of creation, when motion ceases and God rests. - Bruce Waltke, Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Repetition in Genesis chapter one and God said (vv. 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29) let there be (or some form thereof; vv. 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26)

4 3 and it was so (vv. 3, 7, 9, 11, 15, 24, 30) and God made (or similar action; vv. 4, 7, 12, 16, 21, 25, 27) and God saw that x was good (vv. 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31) Some form of naming or blessing (vv. 5, 8, 10, 22, 28) there was evening and there was morning (vv. 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31) A designation of the day as first, second, etc. (vv. 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31; 2.2) > Ancient near east myths Genesis 1 and 2 are not primarily concerned with HOW God made the world but THAT God made the world. > Controversy of understanding Genesis 1 Let there be light, and there is light. Genesis 1.3 God made two great lights the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light over the earth... And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. Genesis For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars, and that the first day was, as it were, without a sky? I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things are intended figuratively and not literally. Origin, The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16 Often a non-christian knows something of the earth, the heavens, the motions and the orbits of the stars, and this knowledge he holds with certainty from reason and experience. It is thus offensive and disgraceful for an unbeliever to hear a Christian talk nonsense about such things, claiming that what he is saying is based on Scripture. We should do all we can to avoid such embarrassment, which people see as ignorance in the Christian and laugh to scorn. - St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis > Is it possible to reconcile Genesis 1 with Modern Science?

5 4 Lemaitre The significance and joy in my science comes in the occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it!' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan. - Dr. Fritz Schaefer is the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia Ironically, the picture of the universe bequeathed to us by the most advanced twentieth-century science is closer in spirit to the vision presented in the book of Genesis than anything offered by science since Copernicus. - Dr. Patrick Glynn, the Associate Director and Scholar-in-Residence at the George Washington University Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. - Dr. Stephen Hawking is to know how God created this world...i want to know his thought, the rest are details. - Dr. Albert Einstein These findings, now available, make the idea that God created the universe a more respectable hypothesis today than at any time in the last 100 years. - Frederick Burnham, Science-historian For the past three hundred years scientists have been scaling the mountain of ignorance, and as they pull themselves over the final rock, they are greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. - Dr. Robert Jastrow, an agnostic and founder and director of the Goddard Space Center. 3. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MERE MORTALS! Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. Genesis 1.26

6 5 There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal... Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. - C. S. Lewis MARS ROVER You are the result of the attentive, careful, thoughtful, intimate, detailed, creative work of God. - James Hufstetler In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment. Within this fragment the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and the speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water complicated structure crawl about for a few years until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded. - Bertrand Russell, Atheist