God Created the World - Genesis 1:1 - Let's Be Clear

All right, well hey guys, I think the appropriate thing to say is welcome back. All right, so we're excited for the new year, especially if you are here with us and your first time ever with us was at the Tanger Center. You honored us by giving our church a chance and coming and I bet many of you are here at all of our different campuses. Maybe some of you are here and that was your first time. The rest of the church, hey, can we welcome them today if they came to Tanger and they're coming back. Man, we just want to tell you we're excited you're here and we really believe there's a lot of great churches in the triad but we really see what God is doing here and we really believe that he could take you to the next steps on your spiritual journey here with us and we'd love to be a part of that journey with you and so we're excited that you're here. If you have a copy of Scripture you can turn with me to Genesis chapter 1. We're gonna be studying a brand new series today so we're all gonna be new together at all of our locations. You're not coming in midway through something that you're not sure what where we're at or whatever.

We're all new together today, okay, so there's a great time to jump in with us. As you guys are turning to Genesis chapter 1, one of the things that I want to do though is I've got to do this. I really want to point out this magnet and I want to tell you it's very important to get this thing from where you are to the house and on the fridge, okay?

It's very, that's very tough for me to do. I hope that you will and I really want to tell you in all seriousness why it matters so much. Guys, we say this every year this time of year and it's really true. A lot of us do, a lot of us want to see a lot of big things in our life this year. We want to change. Man, we want God to grow us but I'm gonna tell you something. We do the New Year's Resolution thing.

I do it too. I've got a million goals for this year. When the clock strikes midnight, December 31, there is nothing in that clock that has the power to change you. It's a new year but it's the same you. It's a new year but it's the same me, okay? If we're gonna be different in a year from now than we are right now, it's not gonna be because we resolved a million things or whatever and I'm not, you know, dishing on that.

I do the same thing. It's gonna be because we got in intentional rhythms of discipleship and we jumped in a stream and the stream and the current took us down the discipleship River into maturity. Now, why do I bring that up now? Guys, these things right here, this is not all that there is. I understand that, okay?

We talk about a million things at Mercy Hill. These are very important dates on your family's calendar where it's an all-in moment, okay? These are, you know we say at Mercy Hill, hey you put the big rocks in first and then you fit everything else in around it? Or if you don't do that, then what happens? The big rocks get crowded out.

These are like some of the big rocks in your family, okay? That you want to make sure you get in. In leadership circles we talk about, and you probably talk about this at work, the 80-20 principle, Pareto's principle, okay?

What does this say? 20% of causes end up being 80% of the effect. Or you could say it another way, where you put 20% of the energy ends up being 80% of where you get your results.

It's a fancy way of saying what Drucker said, okay? It's not about doing the thing right, it's about doing the right things, okay? In that 20%, in that big rocks, in that the right things are these dates right here, okay?

These are things where you put, this is the 20%, some of the 20% that gives you the 80% return. And so I really want to push you to think about building some of your year around this. What a shame it would be that we just simply didn't take the forethought and our kids missed student camp because we were on vacation and it could have been a different week, right? That's what we're trying to help with, okay? So we want to make sure that we get, these are all hands on deck type weekends, get this from here to the fridge. That's not easy for me, Anna's got to do it, okay?

But I can get it from here, I'll lose it between here and there is my point, all right? So maybe some of you guys are that way, but let's try to get it there, let's try to make sure we can get it on the, you know, get it in the calendar and bake those things in. All right, here we go. We're gonna dive in.

Genesis chapter 1 is where we're gonna be if you're new, right at the beginning of the Bible, like first pages of the Bible. And I want to start with the statement that's gonna carry us for the next 10 weeks, and here it is. Clarity is the answer for confusion. Why do I bring that up this early?

Here's why. Because we live in a day where our culture is confused and sadly many Christians are confused and many churches are confused. And part of the problem is, churches and Christians in a very hot climate, listen, there may have been a time where Christians could keep their heads down. We are no longer living there, okay? If that was ever a reality, we're no longer there, okay? And listen, I want peace like the next person, I don't want my kid to be the one that singled out for their views on creation. I don't want to be the one at a corporate thing that doesn't tow the line and ends up, you know, because I'm gonna stand up for my values, ends up getting fired or whatever.

I don't want to be that any more than you want to be that, but I'm gonna tell you something. We live in a day and age where if the idea is that we're gonna keep our head down and we're gonna just try to get along, we will become what the Bible calls a muddied spring. Here's what it says in Proverbs.

Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked. And this is where we live, work, and play. We need to bring clarity where there is confusion. And many times I think Christians take debate, and here's what we do, and if you're not a believer and you're brand new to this thing, you know, it might be that you have seen some of this, and I hope you haven't from our church, but man, we've probably done this too. Instead of being clear, we want to be clever. Instead of being clear, we want to be coy. We kind of like not want to totally say the thing, but we don't want to also, you know, but we don't want to not say the thing, and we try to be clever when what we need to be is clear. Now there's a lot of things, and I get in trouble for this every time I say it, I'm gonna say it again, there's a lot of things that the Bible is not clear about.

There's a lot of things that are that way, and I think it's intentionally so. I take those things to mean God wrote exactly what he wanted to write, and if he wanted it to be crystal clear in pen, he would have done that, okay? But there are a lot of things that are absolutely crystal clear, and some of those things are things that our culture is very confused over, and so we want to bring clarity where there is confusion, and we want to acknowledge on the front end. Guys, every one of us have been in states of confusion over these very issues at different times in our life, but what the Bible says is clear, and we want to stand on that, and we believe it's good for those around us, and it's good for us, and it's good for the world, and so we want to try to be as unapologetic, not mean, but as unapologetic as we can be about these things.

So here's what I want to tackle this weekend. There's the sermon big idea. God created the world for his glory, period.

Alright? Clarity. God created the world for his glory. Man, we didn't create God. God created us. This isn't our world. It's his world, and this is what we want to talk about here this weekend. It's not about us. Here's what we got to get straight, okay?

The very first line of the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible has one subject. You know what it is? It's not you. It's not me. It's not my kids. It's not my job. It's not the success that I want to see.

It's not. Very first line, very first sentence, very first chapter, very first book. The subject is God, and we've got to get that in our heart and mind, and then we will realize that once we have recovered the starting place, all of a sudden now we can begin to align ourselves with the purpose and the destiny and the calling that God has on our life. Actually, that's pretty much the definition of joy. Stepping right in to the purpose and the reason for which we were created. But listen, it's not God for us.

It's us created for God and for his glory. You know, we've got four kids, okay? And so we've done the whole little kid birthday party a million times in my life, and it's awesome.

And you know, you've been there, okay? If you've got kids or you've got nephews or nieces, three years old at the birthday party, and every single one of the kids at some point needs to have the speech. If they were invited to the party and it's not their party, they're playing around at the party, at some point in the party the three-year-old has to be pulled aside and say, child, it's not your party.

You see that kid over there? It's their party. You should just be glad that you got invited to somebody's party, okay?

That's what you got to tell them. It's not your presence, it's not your cake, them ain't your balloons. This is not your party. How many times in my life has God gently, through his Word, reminded me of something that I needed to be reminded of, which is, man, it ain't my party. This whole thing, that whole family, this church, anything I have, my health, whatever it is, it ain't my party.

I'm here, I'm created for one purpose, to bring glory to the one who created me. And that is very confused in our culture right now. It's very confused.

And maybe you're confused about it. And I want you to see that when we're confused about that, it busts up our lives. Because here's what we start doing. We start using good gifts in the hand of a Creator that we might reflect his glory, like money, sex, and power, and we begin to use them for ourselves. We begin to hurt other people with them and ourselves, and our life gets all busted up. Some of us right now, maybe you're not there yet, you will at some point, you will feel the pain of building your whole life for your own name instead of the name of another.

Because you're not created to do that. You were created to worship and to bring glory back to God. And here's what the scripture says. Let's just go right to it. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now I'm gonna read the rest of this just here for just a minute. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said let there be light, and there was light. I want to read that in case you were here at the Tanger Center with us a few weeks ago.

This might be a little bit familiar to you. But what I'm committed to do in this series over the next eight to eight or ten weeks is to preach the simplest version of the clearest truth that I can. And so we're gonna spend our entire time just talking about one sentence. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now here's what the scripture says. In the beginning, God created.

Well, wait a minute. In the beginning, how does God create? Wouldn't that be like the creation of God is in the beginning so that he could... Oh, no, no, no. See, before there was a beginning, there was God.

You can say it like this. God is before the beginning. The Bible tells us, and this is one of those things that should hit us right in the face, you and I are contingent. We had a start. We have to sleep at night. We are weak. We are feeble. We will go back to dust.

We are from dust. God has no beginning. In the beginning, there was already God.

Why? Because God is eternal. Psalm 90 verse 2 tells us from everlasting to everlasting He is. He was before the creation.

He was for all time. He is an eternal being. Now I know, listen, at our campuses and here this weekend, I might have some that say to me, they say, Well, Andrew, you just lost me right there. I mean, you're talking about an uncaused cause. You're talking about, you know, some kind of modern, you know, you're talking about eternity.

That sounds like you're talking about magic. Well, what's the alternative to that? The alternative is, I mean, we say, well, the Big Bang's the alternative. Well, where did all the stuff come from for the Big Bang? Like, here's the thing. Every single person, whether they believe in God or don't believe in God, if you don't believe in God, you end up saying that some kind of matter or energy is eternal, but it's impersonal.

And that's crazy. I mean, compare it if we're gonna leave the land of science and be talking about kind of, you know, eternal and almost magical realm anyway. I mean, a supernatural realm of eternity. Then it would make sense to say, Well, wait a minute.

Is it personal or is it impersonal? You know, so it's not a charge just against Christians. Christians just believed that that thing that was always here was not just an impersonal matter, stardust or whatever, but it was actually God Himself. God was before the beginning, but there was a beginning. And God starts in their space and time and then it makes up. He speaks, boom, in the beginning.

God created. And He does this and all of a sudden everything in the world begins. It starts. There is a moment that it gets going. And in that word, the beginning, we already see an anticipation of the end. You know, one thing that I want to bring out, like I said, I want to preach the simplest, clearest messages that I can. But you have to understand something about the language here. Usually in the Bible, this particular word for beginning always anticipates the end.

They're paired together. I give you examples of that. I'm not gonna do it right this second. Okay, and so the only reason I bring that up, there's a reason at the end of the book, at the end of the Bible in Revelation where it hearkens all the way back to Genesis and it talks about a new heavens and a new earth. There's all these parallels.

Why? Because in the beginning, God already had the end in mind. God started with the end in mind. And He started with, I'm gonna create for my glory.

I will create humanity for my glory. And He has this this plan that runs all the way through. One time we had a preacher here right during COVID, this incredible missionary guy, and he kept talking about God's super plan. Some of you guys might even remember that.

It was sent weekend a few years ago. God's super plan. He's had a super plan to reap glory. The end is in mind all the way in the beginning.

I love this sentence. I mean God, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I mean it just destroys so many other philosophies that we might be tempted to be confused about.

Now I want to tell you, this series is not strictly speaking an apologetic series. I have decided in this series I just want to try to clearly say what the Bible says. Okay, so I'm not going into a bunch of science. What is the Bible saying? Well here's what the Bible says. The Bible is saying God did not wind up creation and kick it off and sit back with his popcorn to kind of see what was gonna happen. There's a bunch of philosophies that just all of a sudden the balloon kind of gets popped when you're thinking about them because of this one sentence.

Oh no, no, no. He's very involved. He's anticipating the end all the way from the very beginning. You think about something like dualism, the yin and the yang. Well that's not what the Bible is saying here. There's this being who is created.

We have other texts to support this. It's not out of chaos. It's not some Babylonian or Greek, you know, kind of account of creation where there's this big fight in the gods and then all of a sudden there's the world.

It's like, no. God is in relationship with the Trinitarian God who's been pouring out love and adoration within the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, and that overflows into this creation.

You know materialism, I don't mean like you go shopping all day materialist, but the materialist who says there's only physical universe and physical things. Well the Bible clearly is saying that's not right because there's God who spoke in to creation. Polytheism. There's a bunch of gods maybe and they're vying for things and they've all created different things and that's not what the Bible says. The Bible is telling us here, oh no, there is one God.

Now He is three in person. We're gonna talk about this. You can see some resources we're gonna have coming out every Monday in this series.

I'm gonna have some stuff coming out soon on this. This isn't, we have a recap of the sermon gonna come out, but there's other resources that are coming out. We're gonna blog next week on the concept of the Trinity.

It's right here even in the first sentence. You know the term God in Hebrew here is the term Elohim. It's a plural term but then it says this, the God, that word is plural almost like it's saying gods, but it doesn't say they created, it says He created. So it's not saying there's a bunch of gods, but there is this Trinitarian God that we have come to worship. Pantheism is out. You know what pantheism is if you've ever seen the movie Avatar. Okay, God is everything.

You plug into God and your hair plugs in and it's all God. Okay, we're all part of it and all that kind of stuff and it's everywhere by the way. All right, I remember riding down the road.

My kids were little. Anna's got the DVD player going and the movie Pocahontas is on. I don't know if you guys have ever seen this.

Wildly historically inaccurate. Okay, pretty good music though. All right, and my daughter is singing this song from the movie Pocahontas. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of this song or whatever, the blue corn moon song. You know, I'm gonna put it in your head. I don't know.

I'm gonna go ahead and do it. Okay, the river and the rainstorm are my brothers. Really?

The otter and the heron are my friends. Now it starts talking about grandmother Willow. Who knows what she's talking about. Okay, this is what it says, we're all connected to each other in a hoop and a circle in a hoop that never ends. Sorry for putting that song in your head. Okay, my daughter is singing this song. Now listen to that. The rainstorm, the otter, you know, it's a circle, it's a hoop, it never ends. It's all part of the same kind of thing. I remember when I got the words of what she's, you know, singing two years old or whatever it is in the back seat, I'm like, I felt like I need to rip my clothes and throw dust and you know, ashes everywhere.

It's like this is total heresy. I remember telling her, I said, howdy Joe, listen, the otter is not your friend. They were mean, they are biting.

Okay, they're not, it's not your friend. And the concept is, man, we got all these different worldviews that kind of slip in and out of our lives all the time and I'm here to tell you again, I mean we could get into the philosophy of all this. What is the Bible saying? It's striking out those ideas. It's saying, no, there's something else that's going on. There's a Trinitarian God who has spoken the heavens and the earth into existence.

That's what it says. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now that idea, heavens and earth, it's almost like it's a figure of speech. I mean, what else is there besides the heavens and the earth? You know, I mean, He's trying to get us to see everything that is has its origin in God. He alone has no beginning, but everything else does. And when He says He has created, that this idea of creation, okay, I want to make sure you understand.

He doesn't say God made the world. You know, we say that. We're like, oh, they made a cake, you know. No, actually they just rearranged a bunch of stuff that was here into a cake. That's making a cake, right?

You make something. That's not what God did. This is God creation. This is a creation that comes from God.

The Latin term is ex nihilo. All that it means is it is creation out of nothing. You can say like this, God creation is creation from nothing. Now we mimic that, and we're moving things around, and, you know, we have a potter. We say, oh, He made this or whatever. It's like, no, He just rearranged some stuff.

That's all that it is. Everything in our life is that way. We're rearranging things all the time that were already here. God has created, not just made. He has created ex nihilo. You know, the old preacher joke is that says, you know, one day the scientists will come to God and get so hotty and say, God, we can make life out of dust too.

Of course, God will say, get your own dust. You know, it's like, no, you might rearrange stuff all day long, but God is the one who creates, and the Bible is crystal clear in this point. The Bible teaches us that before there was man, before there was creation, there was God, and He has created us for His purposes. He has created us for His glory. In other words, God is at the center of it all. This Trinitarian God overflowing with love has created, not out of chaos, not like other belief systems where there's some fight and all of a sudden it's like, no, no, no. Out of love, out of wanting worshippers to recognize His glory because He is worth that our God has created. He's done it for His glory, and I hate to jump to a bunch of other passes.

I'm only gonna do a couple, but the point is this. I want you to see in crystal clarity today what the Bible says, that God created us. God creates man in His own image. Now, man spends their whole life trying to return the favor, a lot of times, back to God and recreate Him, but that's not what we're talking about. The Bible is saying God has been here. He has created us.

Now, why has He done it? Let me give you a couple of verses you can jot down. Isaiah 43 7, Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and I made.

It don't get much clearer than that. God has created, why? For His glory that we would recognize how great He is.

And I understand, listen, I've said this before, I understand if you're new to this whole thing, you know, that can rub people the wrong way a little bit. Like, wait a minute, God has created this whole thing just so we would see how awesome He is and recognize His glory and it's all about Him. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's all about Him. And people have said, this is beyond me, people will say, well, it's almost like God has a God complex. I mean, how can God have a God complex?

You know, other people that kind of think they're God, they could have a God complex because they're not actually God. But if God had created for the glory of someone else, then whatever that would be would be God. When you are the chief end of all things, when you are the one that is uncreated, when you are the big God that we see in the scripture, then of course you have created so that we would recognize your glory. And the purpose of our life would be for that. Revelation 4-11 says this, Worthy are you, O Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.

Why? For you created all things and by your will they existed and were created. God is worthy of our glory. God is worthy to receive our glory, honor, and power.

Why? Because He created all things. Crystal clear, God has created.

Now here's what I want to call you to do this weekend. Glorify God over His creation. Glorify God, for He created you, for He created everything that is, for He created everything that we see.

See, I want to talk to you, and again, I want to be simple and clear. A little bit of philosophy here from what we see just in the culture and maybe even has crept into the church. There is a fundamental point of confusion in our culture and probably in some of our campuses today, and here's what it is. Many people don't know why they were created, but they know there was some reason for why they were created. Can you imagine the rub of that? Can you imagine the internal, the internal and philosophical and existential rub that that creates? To know that there...I feel purpose. I know that there is some reason that I am here and yet I can't quite put my finger on what it is. All that I just said, Francis Schaeffer can say in one sentence.

You ready? Man doesn't know why man has meaning, but he knows he has meaning, and that's the dilemma. Despite all the secular theories that are thrown out that may espouse a no-God beginning, you and I, I would say, cannot shake the knowledge that we are here for some reason. Man, we feel purpose, we dream, we want to make a difference, we have plans for our kids, we recognize beauty.

I mean have you ever thought about a dog or a gorilla taking in a sunset? I mean we are so different. There is a mannishness about us that sets us miles and miles and miles apart. It's the image of God in us. We know that there is some reason that we are here, and yet when we get cut off from the starting place, when we are cut off from the very truth that God has created us for his glory, which subsequently is for our good, okay? When we get cut off from that place, we begin to float, and we don't know how to make heads or tails of where we're going or what that purpose is, but we know there is one, but we don't know what it is, and it tears us apart. And we go searching for it in all types of places. And this is one of the fundamental problems of man, we know there's a purpose, we know there's a God in some sense. You know, I think about a five-year-old, you know, a five-year-old kid walks down the beach and they see a sandcastle over here and other little kids their age playing over here.

You know what every single one of them does? They look at that sandcastle and they know somebody built that. And they look at those kids and they say, I want to play.

There is something in them already. Now what happens to that kid when they get a little bit older and all of a sudden that sandcastle that they know somebody built, they begin to look around, you know what, man there's a tree, there's an eyeball, there's a marriage, there's a human relationship, I just had a kid, and now there's this bond. They see relationships, they see the design of creation, and they can't get away from the fact that we're here for some reason. There's a purpose to it all, but if I don't know what it is it will tear me apart.

You know the other way to think about it is go the other way. Think about the tragedy, think about the dilemma of what it means for us when we see trauma or experience trauma, or we see injustice, or we see things in our community. Man, we lose someone. Guys, I mean, how heartbroken is this church in our community?

And I know we're at different campuses, but at the regional campus right here, we ain't but three miles from where Sergeant Nicks died. And I want you to know as a church, man, you know, our staff has been praying, man, we've called out, you know, got a message to Chief Thompson, is there anything that we can do? We're gonna pray. Is there anything we can do tangibly to help this time? And I cannot help but think about the, you know, there's no coincidences with the Lord. I mean, when we're at the Tanger Center and we're trying to invite and bless, and God knows what's coming just a couple days later. Guys, when we see things like this that rock our community and rock us, do we not feel, think about this, if there is a no God beginning and all we are is stardust, we wouldn't feel the pain that we feel.

You know why? It would just be what it is. It would be what it is. If all we are is stardust, why would we mourn a loss when we see such things happen? See, my point is this, we all know, now we can mask it with alcohol and ego and business success and fitness and kids sports and all that kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, we all know there is something that we are supposed to be doing in this world.

And here's what it is. It is to bring glory through our life, through aligning our life and obedience, through pouring out our love, we are to bring glory to the God who created us. You and I are created in the same, listen, stars, mountains, trees, ocean, you and I. It all pulsates to the glory of God.

There is one reason for which it is created. We have whispers that there is a meaning of life and the Bible doesn't whisper about it, it shouts about it. It doesn't say let's be clever or let's be coy or let's not try to say what it is. Here's what the scripture tells us. You and I are created, Isaiah 43, for God's glory. Another way it says is like this in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day it pours out speech and night to night it reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor are there words whose voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world. We know there is something for us to do and that thing is to glorify God because it's about God, the subject of the first line of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, God. It's not us, it's not you, it's not me, it's not kids, it's not church growth, it's not career, it's God. We are here for him. We are in the image of God. He is not in our image. He created us and life's purpose, I want to be as clear as I can, y'all, life's purpose is not determined by you.

It's not. We can think that it is, we can mask it, we can try to say man it's about me and my direction and my story and my this and my that and I'm gonna tell you something, I'm not throwing rocks at you because I have been there. I have gotten wrapped up in my life at many times about thinking that the storyline was about me, that I was at the center and it will probably happen again at different times in my life and in those moments we need a gracious and loving God to bring us back to passages like Genesis 1 that says man it's not about you, it's about God and his glory and we are here for him and ultimately that is good for us, that is our joy. When you and I find and align with the purpose for which we were created that is joy, that is joy. You know I was watching football the other day, I was watching it Monday, okay, so you know it's New Year's and Alabama loss and Texas loss so there's no southern team in the national championship which is a travesty, okay, and I'll be honest I think it will be the lowest watched game in the last ten years or whatever for but anyway I'm not bitter, okay, but this hey this in all seriousness this commercial comes on and it's for the new multi-purpose tailgate for the Chevy Silverado, okay, and this is where we are. This is how I know capitalism has won over communism, okay, because people will spend $80,000 on a truck because it's got a multi-purpose tailgate because the thing can turn into stairs, okay, it's a toolbox, it'll pour you a cup of coffee, okay, I think it will detach, I think seriously they have a one that will detach and become a surfboard, okay, so they've got a lot of things that this thing will do and I was sitting there watching it and I was just thinking to myself man you know that's funny like I kind of feel like a tailgate has like one purpose, you know, to like open and shut that kind of feels like that's sort of the and I thought about this whole concept of multi-purpose multitasking many of us are obsessed with it's got to have seven functions and we multitask all day and I mean you understand we were sure I think we're starting to catch on to this as a culture multitasking was a thing and then we realized it's just another way of saying you're failing at a bunch of things at once, okay, so we've sort of figured that that part out I think and so but here's the thing like I thought about that and I want I just want to say this guys you are not multi-purpose now we do it a thousand different ways but I want to make sure you understand we have one job one purpose and that is to glorify the God who created us not only to glorify the God who created us but to glorify the God who recreated us in the gospel and I'm thinking about some of us here today that might have a hard time with this message like man it's not about you it's about God and I mean I and I've struggled with this this is a weekend when a lot of new people come to Mercy Hill and I just kind of thought about it I'm like man if I'm gonna tell our church we don't need to be clever and we don't need to be coy I don't need to be clever and I don't need to be coy and I need to just say it like it is I understand that it might rub us a little bit the wrong way when I say it's not about you until you can understand the one who it is about loves you more than you could ever know and he created you to be an eternal relationship with him you and I do have a beginning but we don't have an end and he wants your eternity to be with him in paradise forever and he has created you for this now there's a passage in the scripture that I want to take you to quickly first Peter 1 19 says this but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but he was made manifest in these last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God don't you see what that says but with the precious blood of Christ foreknown from the foundation of the world what does that mean some translation it's like before the world began I'm gonna take you guys over here class okay listen half of you at the Clifton Road campus do not know what this is okay this is called a VCR all right and this is actually literally my VCR about this VCR at a pawn shop off a battleground and I bought this awesome movie Apollo 13 off at a goodwill also off a battleground and I did this because I needed I needed something to show my boys some old tapes of hog-hunting which was awesome but I bought this because they had never seen Apollo 13 I thought that would be cool so here's what I want to say here's what we all remember now if you're if you're only in the days of DVD DVD and you know now now that ain't even a thing right it's just streaming and all that you can always jump to anywhere in the story that you want to go there's almost like no beginning it's like then you can go here you know seeing this scene that's not with one of these babies right now this thing is actually plugged up I want you to know that all right I'm as I'm talking about it I'm actually literally hitting the rewind button and as we're talking I want this thing to start rewinding I think it's rewinding Houston we may have a problem here okay no it's rewinding okay now here's the point there's one up there's a point that I want to make I'm gonna let it keep going I think it's gonna stop the minute all right here's the point that I want to make when you take that tape and you rewind it all the way back imagine that tape is creation itself it's your very life here's what I want you to see when that thing goes all the way back you guys remember this one didn't really do it you know you guys remember that crack that will happen when it pop right it's the very end it's all the way at the beginning okay right before that was Jesus Christ slain before the foundation of the world now what does that mean now that he come in space and time yes he came in space and time but what I'm saying is this that in all of creation you have been on the mind of Christ and he came and knew he would come knew he would sin knew everything you would ever do and yet he was going to come and he was always going to come and die and spread and shed his blood for you you could say it like this y'all God created you and Jesus went to the cross to recreate you you know he created you but in our sin we fell away from him and we struggle and we deserve life not an eternity with him in paradise but in a place called hell and yet he sent Jesus Christ to undo all of that think about the cross you know the cross you think about what happened at the cross the cross the opposite creation earthquakes darkness death Jesus was being decreated so we could be recreated he was going down so that we could go up he died so that we could live if that's true and God loves you that much then it's a good thing that he has created you for his glory and I want you to trust him with his calling upon your life I want you to pray with me now we're gonna go into a really special time that we've planned put a pretty awesome song that we have coming let's pray and then we'll jump into that father I pray right now Lord that you will move in this in this room in this auditorium but also at our campuses and God I pray that as we move into this time of singing a new year's song Lord we would commit together that all glory would go to Christ in Jesus name we pray amen you you you you you you you