Main idea: Come trust the eternal God who promises and carries you into life with him in a new Garden of Eden.
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Well, I want to add my welcome to you as well. Good morning, faith, Bible Church, it's good to see everybody this morning. This morning, we are going back to the beginning. We're going back to the book of Genesis, and we're going to be reading a couple of passages this morning, but we are going to start at the beginning, and we're going to be answering some big questions of life, and we're going to be answering the big questions about, who am I? How did I get here? Where am I going? Why? As we go through Genesis, we're going to be doing that this morning. If you're new to the Bible, we hope to help you. If you have any questions at any time, please let me know any of the pastors or the preachers who are going to take the pulpit know that stand with me for the reading of God's Word. As you do that, we're going to look at three passages, passages in the reading, because we're only going to do four words out of Genesis, one in the beginning, God. But I want to read a couple other things to set in the context of the whole Bible, John, one, one through three and Romans 118 through 22 so we're going to pop through those. They'll be up on the screen if you can't, if you can't type in that fast or flick that past in your pages, alright, I am almost set up here. You
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in Genesis, one, one in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. John one, one through three. 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, that is Jesus, God, the Son, eternally existing with God. The father was there at creation. He brought all things into being. What has man done with that? Romans, 118 for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their right unrighteousness, suppress the truth, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal god for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. This is the word of the Lord. Okay, God, we come this morning in awe and reverence. You are the creator. We are mere creatures. And on a world that is vast, we are barely ants on the surface of the ground, less than that, in comparison to the universe, and yet you, the creator, have made yourself known, and you have formed a relationship so that we could know you and worship you and love you. We thank you for that. How unworthy we are, how worthy you are. And as we come, we would pray that You would help us in our culture, in our day, that says so many different things about who you are and what this world is all about. Help us recenter from Your Word, where we've come from, where we're going, why we're doing it. So give us understanding. Give me understanding. Help give me clarity and accuracy. Speaking about you, I do pray for our city. I pray that churches across our city would be faithful in proclaiming who you are and your gospel of Jesus Christ. I pray for three crosses and Dave Hammond, who is likely in the pulpit this morning, or Cory Gage, give those men grace and clarity, preaching boldly and pray for Princeton Avenue Avenue Church that is soon to be planted with one of our own, who has been with us now at Indian trail with Aaron badley. Give them and their team wisdom as they get ready to plant. May we all, as a collective, bear testimony to the glory of your. Creative Power and your saving power. And may you continue to work in our city. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen. You may be seated Well, everybody wants to know the answers to the big questions of life. How did how did I get here? Where am I going? Why am I going there? Like, what's the purpose? And Genesis answers those questions. That's why Genesis is written, but it's not typically how philosophers would answer those questions. We're not going to start with what is truth. We're not going to start with how you know, things we're not going to start with big titles, like epistemology, genders. Genesis answers those questions in a storyline and in the storyline of Israel and the storyline of the nations. So I think as we start Genesis, it's helpful to just to start there. What's that storyline? Israel is on the plains of Moab, commanded to cross the Jordan into the Jordan river and into Canaan and conquer it. It's a very anxious, frightening time for Israel. They have to trust the Lord Genesis is delivered to them about the same time Deuteronomy is delivered. All five of the books are written, put together, delivered to the people before they cross into the promised land. Canaan is to be their new garden of Eden, at least the next Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they already have a history with Yahweh. When we get Genesis, the people of Israel have had a history with Yahweh. The ones who are standing there were teenagers or younger when they first heard of Yahweh. God revealed Himself to Moses in Exodus chapter three, by the name Yahweh. He delivered Yahweh delivered them out of Egypt by 10 plagues, the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, where the Angel of Death came over this final plague, the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, painting the blood on the doorposts and the lintel allowed the Angel of Death to go over them. And at the Passover, something else died in their place, and they were rescued. They were led through the Red Sea by a pillar of fire, pillar of cloud. Their parents had been disobedient, rebellious, idolatrous, and Israel had wandered for 40 years. And all that time, God was keeping his promise to them. He was going to preserve the nation. He wanted to make a nation. So Israel's about to cross the Jordan River. Now, Israel was delivered out of Egypt. Egypt had its own pantheon of gods, Ra the sun god, and so on. The nations who are surrounding them there, the ones in Canaan, where they were about to go, they all had their own gods. Baal Molek, fertility gods, destruction gods, Storm gods, you
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I and all these in Canaan had rejected Abraham's God. Abraham had come, he had gone through the land over a long period of time, the nations knew about it, and they didn't believe in his God. And now, some 400 plus years later, it was time for God to judge Canaan because they had refused to worship. So Israel's obvious question is, who, who is this God that's leading us here? Where did he come from? Where did we come from? What's the origin and so God gives this book that we call Genesis so that Israel would know their origin story. But it's not just Israel's origin story, it's the nation's origin story. Canaan, who is the Canaanites in their various countries, are seeing a couple million people amass on the other side of the Jordan River. They're amassing a very large army, and they look like they're about to cross. Where did they come from? They'd heard stories about God delivering from Egypt. They'd heard about plagues. They had heard about what God did to Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. Would they humbly submit, or would they reject to a Canaanite Genesis is the origin story of a people whose God is the Creator of heaven and earth. Would they listen? And here you are this morning, here you are this morning, and you're on one or the other side of that same coin. Obviously, we have the rest of the storyline of the Bible, and if we don't have it fulfilled yet, there is some still to come, but we have the whole storyline, and we have 3500 more years of history. But as Hebrews three talks about. We're in a wilderness. We're not in our new garden of Eden. We're not in paradise, yet we're not in our new heavens and a new earth. We're in a wilderness, and we're waiting our promised land. We have been delivered by the death of Jesus Christ, the final Passover lamb, and Israel had a come and see mission. They were to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, Exodus 19 says and people were to see the way they lived and how their God blessed them, and the surrounding nations were to say, we should follow that God. Israel never filled, fulfilled that purpose. We have a different purpose. It's a go and tell mission. We're to go to all the nations our mission as a church to be a loving community making disciples of Jesus Christ. We are encouraging each other. We are making disciples here, and we send people to make disciples in other nations. We are to be a kingdom of priests and Jesus Christ our Savior, that final Passover Lamb who died to pay for our sins, rose in Conquest of sin, and the devil offers forgiveness, restoration, a relationship with him, he's going to return to judge idolaters and establish the final Garden of Eden. So here you are. There's the story. You're on one side or the other of this. Are you going to be more like the Canaanites who are going to hear God declare himself and say, I can do better? Or are you going to be like the followers of Christ the last 2000 years saying this is our creator who is carrying us from this day into our eternal home. If you're here and you're curious about who the Christian God is, this is where you have to start. The Christian God, his origins are in his origins, the origins of our story with him are here this world has many religions too, doesn't it? And if you're, if you're just an average person coming into a church, there could seem to be, to you, 50 choices to make about religions. There could seem to be a lot of them, but I want to tell you this morning, the Bible doesn't begin with a debate on what truth is or with proofs of God's existence. God isn't trying to prove to you that he exists. He exists, and He's declaring it to you so that you would come to him. He is declaring himself, and he is offering you a relationship with him now and forever. He wants you to know how you got here, where you're going, and why you're going there, the purpose and the question that happens for us tomorrow morning, you're going to wake up Monday morning and you're going to have something to anticipate tomorrow or in the week. You're going to have trouble to face tomorrow or in the week, you're going to have a calling by God, whether it's in your family or your workplace or your school. You're going to have that will you trust the God who reveals himself in the Bible, or will you trust a God of your own making? Will we trust God? Draw near each day, serve him each day on our journey to the promised land, or will we follow Gods of our own imagination? Genesis is here to remind us who God is and why we can trust him. Here's the big idea, as we as we come to it. You could apply this in a variety of ways, but it's an invitation. The Bible is an invitation to come and trust the eternal God who promises and delivers into life with him in a new garden of Eden. We start in a garden of Eden, we end in a new garden of Eden. That's where the storyline ends on a on a mountain garden in Genesis, 22 That is perfection, and it's an invitation to trust him. This is going to be a theological message. It's a worldview message. And these are the kinds of things that you base your actions and your affections and your next choices on. As we think of Genesis by introduction, the word Genesis comes from a Latin word that means origins, the Hebrew name for the first book of the book of Moses, the Pentateuch is beta sheet, which means, in the beginning, it's the beginnings. It's the origin story of all things, especially God's people. For several weeks, we're going to focus on chapters one, two and three, and we're going to take it kind of slow, because we live in a world that's worldview is very different, at best, diametrically opposed, at worst, to the worldview that's here in the Bible. So if you're coming and you're new to the Bible, whatever you've thought the Bible is going to cut cross grain. It's going to confront, it's going to challenge the way that you think, and if you are a follower of God already, this is going to encourage you. This God will be with you tomorrow morning, when you get up and face your trouble, when you face your excitement, and when you are called to do the task that he's called you to, if you're new to today, to the Bible, Genesis follows God's founding relationship with five key men, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it's going to follow five key men. It's going to give a lot of time to a guy named Joseph, but that's because he's Jacob's son. These great promises are going to come to them, the 12 tribes of Israel that are famous in the knowledge of culture, of religious things. We're going to see them by the end of the book. They all come from these five. The Bible is a story of relationship between God and His people, and he is making Himself a people through Jesus Christ, despite whatever the people do to spurn His grace and His Holiness and the Bible begins then with essential truths about God, who's graciously offering a relationship with him. It's not enough this morning to say, here are four truths that you need to know, that you need to get right. I mean, you've got to get them right. But we don't stop there. We we go to the relationship God has made us not to just know about him, but to have an infinite relationship, or an intimate relationship, with him. So here's, here's the four headings. First, God is revealing Himself to you. Revelation. He's revealing to himself, to you in a book, God is self existent. He is the theology. The theological word that we're going to use is aseity. I'll write it out later. It's a cool word that hopefully every six year old will be able to say by the end of the sermon. God is self existent. God is eternal.
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He was before time and all things. And God is center. God is center of all things. The one who is before all things and made all things is center of all things. So let's take and unpack these four these are worldview truths for us. Number one, God is revealing Himself to you in a book. He's revealing Himself to you in a book. God reveals Himself to some extent in creation, but we need a word to interpret creation. We need a word to overcome man's sinful opposition to God, and we need the word and flesh Jesus Christ. Let's just walk through this briefly. Here's what it starts with in the beginning, God. How did we get here? First question, Well, God created. How do we know? How do we know God created, since Here you are, the only way you would ever be able to find anything out is by personal discovery of the stuff here, or by the revelation that is given the personal discovery of the stuff could take a very long time and always be sub. Object to your misunderstanding or your personal bent, and so God gives us a revelation. He introduces himself in the beginning, God and the doctrine. When we talk about the truth of Scripture, the doctrine of Scripture. It's God's revealed will to us Hebrews one. One later in the Bible says, long ago, many times, in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. The first of the speaking prophets writing scripture is Moses. Moses wrote this. Now this, this flies in the face of contemporary atheistic culture, or at least materialistic culture. Richard Dawkins, the famous atheist, once said this, if God wanted us to know him, why didn't he just write it in the stars? I am here, and we'd all say, Great, there you are. Here's the problem. God did do that in the stars, and mankind rejected the language, since the heavens declare the this is Psalm 19. One says, The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. I was talking to one of my friends who had taken his kids camping, and they were up in ion camping away from all the light pollution. You know what it's like on a lake where there's no light pollution and you see the stars and the Milky Way. It is just exhilarating.
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So we know there's something, but what do we do with it? Well, because of man's rebellion, we have a problem in Romans, 118 the Apostle Paul talks about every man's problem. Says, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and righteousness have been problem. Number one, God has a just anger that he is going to pour out, who, by their unrighteousness, suppressed the truth. Why is he pouring it out? They suppress the truth. What's the truth? The truth about creation, for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature. Eternity, aseity. He is something different. He is divine have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. God, I didn't know. No you knew, but you chose. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of immortal god for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things they imagined for themselves, spirits. They represented these spirits, these gods, by natural things, and they worshiped these. Man made things. Man made ideas, as the true gods. You a man has been suppressing the truth since the beginning. The myths and legends grew, their ideas spread, and now those those various religions, are all over the world. You live in a day where there are many religious choices but God has given His creation. He's given us a word. He's also given us Jesus Christ, when we bring him in today, because especially the truth about Jesus Christ is like the beach ball in a pool. Like you try to push the beach ball down in a pool, if you're really big and heavy, you can kind of hold it under the water while you fall water while it floats, but like pretty soon, it's just going to keep coming back up. And this is the reality that you have to deal with, with Jesus. The Jews had to deal with it with coming out of Egypt. Always remember this God who led you out of Egypt. We deal with it today, with the history of that, and with the reality of Jesus Christ, we connect them together, because God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, were all there at the beginning, and God the Son took on human flesh. John one, one says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, so he's not whatever the word is, which it ends up being, Jesus. Jesus is not the same as God. Jesus is 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 you. Right? So, here is Jesus, the CO creator of all the all things. When it says, In the beginning, God, Jesus was there not a second God, one God, three persons, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, John, 114 says And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And here's the promise, if you listen to this revelation, to all who did receive Him, who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God. He's revealed himself for you to know him through his Son. So Genesis reveals the way things really are, where they really came from. It reveals God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and His glorious plan through Jesus Christ, by the time we get through chapter three, you're going to see the plan of Christ unfold to come and destroy the devil and his temptations. Now I want to acknowledge some of you here have a difficult time trusting the Bible, as far as you know, you're just looking at this, and maybe you're a maybe you're a late grade schooler, a teenager who's saying My parents have been bringing me to church. But I'm realizing there are all these other views. How do I know which of these other views are true? How do I know? I would love to develop all of the aspects of the trustworthiness of the Bible this morning. I can't do it, just don't have time to do it. I'd be happy to talk to you if you are curious about that. Chris tornquist is starting with Revelation, the fundamentals of the faith class. You could get part two of it next week. Come here, first hour, go there, second hour. There's a helpful little book I like to hand out called, can I trust the Bible. Can I trust the Bible? By Barry Cooper. There's often a series of objections that people have to the Bible. There are so many translations. It's been changed like you know, there's all these objections which have easy answers to them. I can't go into all the reasons but, but I will say this, everyone puts their faith in something. You're going to put your faith in something. You're going to put your faith in your reason, in science, psychology, a sports team. I mean, some of you put your faith in a sports team. That's actually funny. You're not laughing. You're like, I know they do. Some people put their faith in business principles. Some people put it in an ability to convince people that your way is right, like something, the thing you may rely on is that you can make everybody believe what you're saying goes from the practical to the philosophical. Some put their faith in money, some put it in another religion. So here's the question, you're going to put your faith in something? What's going to be your basis for that, what's going to be your basis, and is it a good idea that you either rely on your reason or God's revelation? I mean, those essentially are your choices. I'm going to rely on how I think it through, or I am going to trust what's been revealed, which seems like a smarter idea to you. Make it up, find somebody who made it up and it sounds good to you, or take what's revealed. The Bible is what's revealed. If we apply this one example, Latter Day Saints say that there are many gods, Heavenly Father, who is the creator of this planet, was also himself, created somewhere we don't know where, and if we're really good, we can get our own planet too. We talk about stress. I can't even, can't even run my family a whole planet. You here, if you lead, is that a legitimate I mean, compare it. Compare what the Bible says. Compare what that says, which which one is going to be a smarter bet to put your faith in. If you lean toward atheism and evolution, you're going to have to put your faith in everything coming for. Nothing, and that's the conclusion everything came from nothing. Neil deGrasse Tyson says we have the math to prove it that everything came from nothing. My god, I'm still not sure we're understanding the logic that what comes from nothing. I mean, Maria knows Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could, like even Sound of Music, understands this basic principle of logic. Is it better to put my faith and my own ability to figure things out, or is it better to receive what the God has created. Everything is holding out to you. God's revealed himself in the Bible, not to be difficult, but to be easy, so that you could know him. Richard Dawkins said, once I wake up every morning, and when I see the evidence, I have to remind myself that there's no designer. You track that like it looks like there's a designer, but I have to remind myself every morning, there's no designer. Why does a person do that? Because it gets me out of an obligation to a creator. So first, God's given us revelation. Second, the God of the Bible is,
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he is. He is self existent when, when we open Genesis, one, one in the beginning, God, he's he's just there. He's there.
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The word for God here is the word Elohim, and in itself it, it denotes a mighty one, a strong one. And it's in a plural form. Some Hebrew scholars say it's a plural of majesty. When, when we use the royal we, we say that in marriage, we need to do something, honey. I mean the royal we. I mean you. But the royal we, that, some people think that. But by the time you get to Genesis 126 we have an hour image. And as you start to walk through the Bible, even in Isaiah, you find the son speaking of the Father and the Spirit as one God in three persons. We have plural. We have a mighty one, a strong one. That title that's used God, the strong one immediately puts us into the reality that whoever made all of this is so infinitely more powerful than anything we could think of. We are going to have to rethink our whole view.
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God comes right out and says it through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. I exist the word for it shows up in Genesis two four. In Genesis two four, we have the first time in the Bible that you the word Yahweh is used. Says, These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens and Moses was introduced at the burning bush to Yahweh. Burning Moses is in the wilderness. He sees a burning bush. It's not going out. It's not burning up and burning out. He goes over to see it. God speaks to him out of the burning bush, commands him to lead the people out of Israel. Moses is very reluctant, but he finally asks, okay, who am I going to say? Is Sending me? And he says, I am, that I am is sending you. Yahweh, the living one, the self existing one. Theologians have used the word aseity for this. Aseity, A, S, e, i, t, y, hopefully your seven year old can say it at lunch, which means, God has no need. He has no need. He is self existent. Elohim, the Mighty One, the strong one, is self existent. He simply is. And it's essential that we recognize this. Yes, Jeremiah 3217 puts it in the context of relationship with Israel. Jeremiah says this, ah, Lord God, it is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, nothing is too hard for you. I mean, you think of the power anything has to be self existent and living, and the power out of himself to create everything that you see and everything that you explore in this grand universe.
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God is Isaiah, 4610, says this, declaring the end from the beginning and from the ancient times, things not done, saying My counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose, God, who is self existent, before he brought anything into being, had a plan from the beginning to the end for every single individual in a In a world that would have billions and billions you
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God. Everything that you see and you touch has an origin. That origin is the one who has no origin. And remember how significant this is. You don't do God any favors. You don't give him good ideas. Lord, I have this idea. I think you should think about this. You don't offer him service that he has to repay. You offer him service because he's the king. He doesn't get hungry. You don't feed him, he doesn't get tired, he doesn't take a nap, He doesn't sleep at night. He exists. His wisdom has existed. His wisdom and His power are eternal. The
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you don't do a series of good works in this world. Keep a scorecard handed in to God and says, Oh man, I hope I have enough to cover that he doesn't owe you anything, and yet He is gracious to you, to give you all of himself. The Apostle Paul explodes and prays at the end of Romans, oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, How unsearchable are His judgments, how inscrutable his ways For who has known the mind of the Lord who has been his counselor, who has given him a gift that he might be repaid for, from him and through him and to him, are all things to Him, be glory forever and ever. Amen. God is self existent, all powerful, almighty, all wise. Just Just pause. Tomorrow morning you're going to wake up with something to anticipate, something to dread. That's how life goes, something to anticipate, something to dread, and something to do, and this God has promised to be with you in it all. I don't know why you would want to go anywhere else if the third, God alone is eternal. God alone is eternal. The God who is calling you into relationship as Genesis, one opens, is eternal meaning he has always existed in Hebrew. There is a there is a word for eternal or eternity, Olam. And depending on the context, sometimes just means very old, and sometimes in that sense, God is called Eternal. He is indeed very old. But I mean the age thing only applies since creation. What Genesis one one tells us is that he has existed before time and creation into what we call eternity past, and only he has existed into eternity past. Sometimes God is called immortal meaning he cannot die. You. God, that's true about God. He cannot die, but eternal means more than immortal. Eternal goes back before time into eternity past. You are not eternal. You are immortal, but not eternal. God has called you into being. You will never go out of being, because his power will sustain you forever. That can go one of two ways in coming to his son, which he's given as a sacrifice for your sins, as your Lord and your God, you will die. Your soul will go to be with God. Eventually, your body will be reunited. You'll be resurrected and given new life, and you will live in glory and joy with him forever, that kind of immortal, or you will reject him, like the nations do, and you will die. And one day, your body will be resurrected to meet your soul coming out of hell in prison, and they will be consigned to the outer darkness, the lake of fire, forever. You're immortal. You're going to live on forever, but you're not eternal. It is the eternal power of God that sustains you.
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Again. This is to help comfort us and humble us. Let's start with humbling us. Isaiah, 46, nine and 10. Again, it says, For I am the Lord. There is no other I am God. There is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand. I will accomplish all my purpose so before, in the beginning, before that Father, Son and Spirit had eternal conversations beyond our imagination, we can't we don't know what that means. We just take it as a faith truth that eternal conversations and eternal plans, and they put those into effect at the creation, and they will bring those to a culmination in the new heavens and the new earth. And that's why God the Father and God the Son can both say, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
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So in his wise purposes, he is bringing everything to pass. The astounding realities of that is God made creatures, humans in particular, and angels with real choices, real volition, to act in this world, to make choices. The choices are real. Things really happen when you make those choices. And yet God, in his infinite wisdom, is moving all of those things along according to His good and wise purposes.
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This reality of God's Eternity, Eternity his wisdom, His eternal wisdom, humble us, but they also comfort us. Psalm 91 and two Moses says this, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever, you had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. Who is your home? It's not really a question of where is your home. It's not a question of where is your home. It's who is your home. The Eternal God, who has existed in eternity past, who holds all things together, who has formed the earth He is the home of the one who trusts him. You
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Amen, these two truths, God's self existence and his eternal existence, are gunshots that set off the avalanche of truth about God's power. God is infinite in power. Nothing is too difficult. Our God is in the heavens. He does as he pleases Psalm 115 one says just the fact that he was already there before creation and then creates, speaks of someone with majesty and power that goes beyond human comprehension, and he is calling you into a relationship. And
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this is what he said to the Israelites as He commanded them to enter Canaan. They're going to face excitement. They're going to face trouble. They're going to have a job to do. God, and the eternal God is their home as they do it. And if he promises life through His Son, you're in your wilderness, you're going to face your tomorrow, all of the joys and sorrows and tasks to do. And he is your home to dwell in. He has the power to sustain which leads us to the fourth worldview. God is the center of all. The one who brought all into being is the center of all. Since he was before the beginning, what what he makes can't be the center of all things. The creator must be the center of all things. This is what the Bible says. Nathan's going to unpack it much more tomorrow. We're going to get two verses next week. Listen, Isaiah, 4811 he says, for my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. That is rescue Israel for how should my name be profaned My glory? I will not give to another. God created Israel for His glory. God created the church for His glory. God is the center we are not the center. Lots of things in our culture compete for centrality. One of the major world views is materialism. And by materialism, I don't mean greedy, that I have to keep buying stuff. I mean materialism in the sense that everything exists is matter. It's physical matter. Matter matters. It's the center of all things. And there is a priesthood to materialism, secular science, atheistic evolution. There is a priesthood to tell us about this. There's really no ultimate purpose. There is just the stuff. And since there is just the stuff in the world is everything to us, this world is everything to us, and people personify it. What do we call it? Mother Earth? Some people actually try to worship it. Atheistic. Evolution is merely the origin story of materialism.
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In the modern era, it's well been understood that there is another competing center, the center of self, the preeminent concern in the world is is no longer good and evil, but self and what I can get out of it. So concepts like self love, self care, self autonomy, become the major steering mechanisms for how to get through life and its difficulties. Self is the functional Savior. You need to find the answers in yourself. Your therapist is going to tell you. Your therapist's job is just to help you find your answers in yourself. You need to follow your own truth, and absolutely everything about the first four words of the Bible are at war with self being at the center, not in the beginning. Dan in the beginning. Ray in the beginning. Dan, like it's not in the beginning, you. It's in the beginning. God, he's the center of all things.
48:54
Love your neighbor, as yourself, has been replaced with love yourself, forgive yourself, please yourself. Now what would you rather put your faith in if you're going to make a faith assertion the omnipotent, eternal or the soon to die, self? Self can only handle us a handful of problems a day. Self can only last until death. Self, as we know, does a world of harm. Let self go unrestrained, and he takes an AK 47 or AK 47 wrong gun, wrong book. He takes an AR 14 or an AR 15 into a school so he can get glory, and he just shoots as many classmates as he can. You let self run. Self will do the worst possible things. Do we need to really recount the 1000s of ways serving. As self has harmed your marriage, your relationships, your workplace. Do we need to recount how the self as center ruins it all?
50:17
Genesis, one, one God offers himself as the center. The logical extension of self at center is the current obsession about how we feel about everything. This is the emoji culture, right? I said that, and my friend Kevin Gardner texted me three emojis in the middle of the middle of the sermon. Thanks, Kevin. We're experts about how we feel and how we are obsessed, and we are obsessed with how we feel. Your feelings are God given. Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating for my my Norse anti feeling. I'm not advocating that. Don't get me wrong, but feelings as the center will always enslave you. They will always enslave you, and they will never satisfy you, because as soon as this feeling is gone. You need another
51:29
my wife and I are able to talk about this now, everything that she texts to me has to have an emoji with it. Love Hearts. Would you please remember to turn in your receipts, hearts, smiley face emoji. I mean, she's like, I've asked you nine times she could use some other emojis if she wanted, and then I'm supposed to respond with nice emojis too. Like every every communication has to have emojis with it, which isn't a bad idea in a print world. But I mean, if I just say, got it, it's like, oh, he has a bad attitude. I don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I do have a bad attitude. I don't have a bad attitude emojis. I mean, it's just how, how many of you, like you talk about the feels, you know, the the vibe that something gives you, where the vibes good, where the feels good.
52:38
The feels have this ruling power over us. We want people to see us, notice us, like us, never criticize us. I was fascinated watching the documentary of Simone Biles, arguably the most amazing gymnast that has lived so far and at the last Olympics, she had what gymnasts called the twisties, which I thought was just an uncomfortable way to wear those tights. But as it turns out, when a gymnast like her can get in the air and turn and twist like 18 times, the brain can't keep track of where it is. I totally get that. I take two left turns on the street and I don't know where I am. I imagine if I'm doing this. So she had to pull out because she was she could break break. She could land on her head. She could land on her foot wrong like, it's very dangerous to not know where you are in the air when you're spinning three times and turning six times. And the sports world just went ballistic on her as a quitter, against her team. She left her team, and it was the news. And then she's got social media presence, she's she's a commodity, like every professional athlete, is a commodity. You got to get yourself out there, if you got to get yourself out there, and you're a commodity, they buy you or they don't, and suddenly who you are is tied up in whether you're bought or not. And I don't blame her. It was a miserable three years after those Olympics because of what everybody wanted to say about her that they felt perfectly willing to express on social media. And she's on social media looking at all of this, and my heart's aching for her. I'm like, get off of it. The last thing you need to do is hear what everybody's saying about you all the time. But I mean, she's a commodity, so she's got to get herself out there.
54:49
My point isn't that feelings are bad, they're good, they're God given. Putting yourself out there to do all kinds of thing is normal. You. I'm hoping that's not a fire alarm. It's a phone alarm. I guess we'll find out. Thank you. But when you when you put how people feel about you and how you feel about you and how you feel at the center, you're setting yourself up for the greatest misery the world's known. You've set yourself up for hell on earth and a hell in Hell, if you worship your feelings and worship yourself, God is the center not because he's needy. God is the center not because he's needy. God is the center because he is the super, abundantly, glorious one. He is the greatest, he is the best. He is the Creator. He is the center, not because he needs you to acknowledge it. You need to acknowledge it because it's true. And this God, who is all glorious, shares himself in relationship through His Son, Jesus Christ. He wants you to dive in and know Him and enjoy Him and trust Him and obey Him. He wants all of you with him at the center, because he is the most glorious, and when God is the center, how you feel about yourself and how others feel about you is irrelevant. I think the glorious news of the Bible, all you have to do is please God, and he's given you a book and told you how to do it. You can do that. You can't please anybody or everybody, but you can please God. He's given you his word to know how to do that, starting by trusting in his son.
57:22
So there are, there are phrases in the Bible that talk about God being our portion. Psalm 16, verse five, The Lord is my portion and my cup you hold my lot. My lines have fallen in pleasant places. He used food and property to talk about portion, pig plate, a big cup, a nice piece of land, right? Those are things we think of in terms of portion. The Lord is my portion. Genesis, one one in the beginning. God means that your portion is more than you could ever eat or ever drink or ever hold is the treasure so vast and great it will never run out. He is your portion, if you will. But turn away from false gods and sin to Him through His Son, you Yeah, remember the storyline of the Bible. God is making a people for Himself, from every nation, every tribe, every language, every tongue. And we're going to see really quickly in the origin story of Israel and mankind, how quickly Adam turns and so from Adam to Babylon, every person, every nation, has rejected God. And yet, what is true about the glory of God is that He is merciful and gracious, and he promises redemption to all who would call on him. Every nation has rejected God who created him, but we also see the mercy of God, of providing a victor, providing a redeemer. So you sit here today, ready for another week. You have things that you anticipate. You have challenges. Will you face those in humble dependence on the self existent God, or will you face them? And will you face them with him at the center, we as a church, have a mission, a loving community, making disciples of Jesus Christ. Will we take that mission, clinging to an eternal self, existing God who has been gracious to provide us a relationship through Jesus? Christ, let's take hold of it, God, thank you for what you have put here in front of us. We thank You for Your Word. Four words are oh so potent. Forgive us when we think we are the center. Remind us of your glory help us to remember that by faith we can please you. You have given us a revealed will, and you have given us all the power that we need, and so May our lives be lived for your honor and glory. It's in Christ's name, we pray. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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