In the Beginning

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. In the beginning was the Word. That's right. And the Word was with God. The Word was God.

There's your Trinity. God is God, but he's also with God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him.

Without him was not anything made that was made. So the Word that God used, that the Father used to create everything was Jesus. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. I'm Molly Bidevich, and we're excited to be jumping into God's Word today. You know, almost every culture and religion has its own creation story, their idea of how everything began. And that story says a lot about how the people in that culture ultimately view themselves and their relation to that creator.

Well, today, Pastor J.D. is unpacking the true story of creation found in Scripture. He's explaining how we were created and what that says about our ultimate purpose.

It's part of our series called The Whole Story. We're starting in the book of Genesis, and over the next few months, we'll be working all the way through to Revelation. Pastor J.D.

titled today's message In the Beginning. The Bible intimidates a lot of people. There is so much in the Bible that seems hard to understand, and sometimes even more difficult to apply. I heard a true story this week that I think completely encapsulates that. Rupert Leary, who is one of our college pastors, told me that a guy serving in campus outreach befriended this past semester a graduate student from China studying abroad here in the United States. We'll just call this graduate student Lee. He showed lots of interest in the faith. He literally had never heard about Jesus before last semester, so he dove right in, began to learn the gospel, make a long story really, really short. He came to faith in Christ right before Christmas break last year. Well, just before he left to go home back to China for the Christmas break, the college pastor gives him his first English Mandarin Bible, never owned a Bible before in his life. First time he puts one in his hands and just says, read this on your own while you're back home. Well, at New Year's, this college pastor gets a text from this Chinese student regarding Genesis 17, where God tells Abraham, the sign of the covenant between me and you is that you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. Lee believed that this was a step of obedience that Christians were supposed to take. He read it that morning. He walked into a clinic in China that afternoon and then sent this college pastor a text that night to tell him that the deed was done. So I have two thoughts here. Number one, you have to admire this kid's commitment to follow Jesus.

In fact, that might make for a good rallying call on campus. How far are you willing to follow Jesus? Will you go with him through the gauntlet?

Lee did. Number two, it is possible to misunderstand or misapply parts of the Bible. Hopefully any misinterpretations that you have made are not that painful, but needless to say, it can be intimidating to just pick up the Bible and say, I'm going to read it and I'm going to obey everything that I see. Furthermore, while many of you have learned little bits and shards of Bible knowledge over the years, you've never really brought it together in one unified whole.

And we're going to try to change that this year. We are calling this series the whole story because that's what we're going to see in all the stories, all the commands, all the genealogies, all the characters. There's really just one story that's being told. And it's a story not about you and your life.

It's a story about Jesus. So if you have your Bibles, I want you to take them out right now. And I want you to open your Bibles to Genesis 1, 1.

Genesis 1, 1. Last week we established that the Bible is not a book about you. This is often people's first and biggest mistake about the Bible. I explain they approach it like a manual on how to fix your life. But I explained to you that the Bible is not a book about you. It's a book about Jesus.

Every character, every genealogy points to him. And I explained that the irony is when you see that, that will fix your life. Or we might say it like this. The point of the Bible is not to tell you how to fix your life. The point of the Bible is to fix your eyes on Jesus.

And when that happens, his power will begin to fix your life. Well, you're going to see this central message introduced in the very first verses of Genesis. Genesis 1, verse 1.

Here with me as I go through it. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 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. Tim Keller says that in these three verses, you can see three things that were present before creation began, each of which that has profound implications on how we live. Three things present before creation.

Here we go. Number one, before the creation, there was God. There was God. In the beginning, God.

You say, well, duh. But you may not realize how unique this is in creation accounts. In most other ancient creation accounts, the universe comes from something. There are usually multiple gods in our universe as the result of some cosmic battle. According to one myth, for example, the human race arises from the blood of a slain God. In another one, they're created from the remains of a dead sea monster. In these accounts, humans are typically an accident or an afterthought, the result of larger cosmic forces that have nothing to do with them. Yet in the book of Genesis, everything starts with one God who creates all by himself out of nothing.

Theologians call this creation ex nihilo, or in Latin, creation out of nothing. Isaiah 44, 24 says that when God created the earth, he stretched out the heavens all alone. He was all by himself.

Nobody was with him. He took counsel with no one, not the angels, nobody. It all comes from him and it all exists for him. And then Genesis says something else. It says that God made man and woman in his own image. Genesis 1 26, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Verse 27, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them.

Here's what all that means. If all things come from God and God made us in his image, there are two things that we will only ever be able to find in him. The first is the measure of our lives.

And by measure, I mean, what is good, what is bad and what life's purpose is. Atheists you see have a problem. And many of them know it because it's been pointed out by many of the best atheist philosophers, guys like Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean Paul Sartre. Nietzsche and Sartre, by the way, are my favorite atheist of all, because they forced their atheism to its bitter logical conclusion. Sartre said that the atheist problem starts with good news. The good news, he says, is once you dispense with God, you can do whatever you want. Guilt-free with no dread of retribution.

If you get away with it on earth, you'll get away with it forever. The bad news, he says, however, is that when you get rid of God, you lose all intellectual bases for declaring anything to be inherently right or wrong. You see, in order to say something that is something is right or wrong, you have to have a standard to which you are comparing it. To say something is against the design, you have to know what the design is.

And if the universe is simply randomly colliding material particles, then there can't be any design or purpose. And thus there can be no right or wrong. You might argue, practically speaking, that certain things seem more useful for the human race, based on your vantage point, of course, but that's different than saying that something is inherently wrong or evil. You may feel that genocide is wrong, for example, but why? Just because you think it's more useful to the human race for there not to be genocide? Well, the Nazis had a different opinion. And you might argue that they were wrong in that calculation, but that is different than saying that the strong targeting the weak for extinction is evil. And what's special about the human race anyway? Why should it survive? Why not let survival of the fittest do its work on us? You say, well, whatever the majority of people think is right, that's what's right and that's what should be the law.

Really? Well, where does that leave the slave living in the American South in the 1840s when the majority assumes that their oppression is what's most useful for society? Where does that leave the Jew in the 1930s in Europe?

If the Nazis had won and convinced everyone of the superiority of the Aryan race, would that have made Jewish oppression right? For the atheist, there is no such thing as true beauty. Again, just things that we have become programmed to believe are useful for us. Let me now quote from my least favorite atheist, Richard Dawkins, because he's the soundbite atheist. He says this, and I quote, when you look at certain scenery, you think it is beautiful because your ancestors believed that there was food out there.

And that particular neurological feature that helped them survive has now come down to you. And that's the reason that you see certain things as beautiful. Honestly, just ask yourself, do you buy that?

Do you buy? If you do, I mean, you really do, then I've got a lot of respect for you because that just doesn't make sense with life. That feeling that you have looking out at a sunset or out at a starry night is just about finding food. Well, you look at the stars and remind you of a Twinkie or something.

I just don't understand that. No, there is something in us that says that's absurd or that love that you feel for your kids or your spouse. Do you honestly believe that it is only what Richard Dawkins says that it is just a conditioned response that our genes have programmed us to make in order to propagate our DNA faster than our neighbors can? Try putting that on a Hallmark card, right? My genes think you are useful for the propagation of my DNA, right?

Let's make out. It doesn't have quite the romantic zing to it, does it? For the atheist, things cannot be beautiful in themselves.

Things can only be useful. You see, Christians believe that things are good and beautiful because they reflect the image of their creator. The sunset is beautiful because it displays for us a beautiful God and it makes us yearn for him. So when you see that beauty of the sunset, your heart is supposed to cry out, God, you're amazing. You're amazing.

You're amazing. How majestic is your name in all the earth? The reason we long for justice and the reason we cherish love is because we are made in the image of a God who is just and whose love is never ending. So because we come from God, God provides the measure for our lives. And then because we come from God, we also find our meaning in him.

That's the second thing. You see, the human heart is designed so that it only works when God is at the center. The way the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible said it is that God has put eternity in our hearts. And what that means is that every man and woman, boy and girl has this yearning in them that says there's something more than just what I see here on earth. A philosopher I quote a lot named Blaise Pascal said it, and you've probably heard this before. He says, in every human heart, there's a hole, there's a vacuum, a void. He said, we spend all of our lives trying to figure out what goes into that vacuum. He says, at first, when you're a kid, you think it's the love of your parents.

And you think if mom and dad approve of me, then I'll be happy. He says, as you get older, that you turn to romantic love, sexual love, and you get older still and you think now it's going to be in money. It's going to be in the praise of people.

It's going to be a success. A lot of people wind up turning to alcohol, drugs, some kind of sensual pleasure. He says, but no matter what we try in life, nothing ever seems to work because that hole is in the shape of God himself. It's a God-sized hole.

It's a God-shaped hole. And until we get God in the right place, we always think that happiness is just around the corner. I'm not happy yet, but I know I'll do it when I achieve this. But until you find God, you haven't found the purpose for your life. Until you find God, life is like a tool, a tool that you just don't quite know what it's for. When Veronica and I moved into, and our family moved into our house, the previous owner had obviously taken everything out, but there was one key sitting on the mantle. But we could not for the life of us figure out what it went to.

So we spent three months just going out and sticking that key into things, seeing what would work and nothing worked. And, you know, Veronica eventually was like, well, should I, you know, should we throw it away? I'm like, well, it's got to go to something.

It's not just there randomly. It's got to go to something. Well, winter comes and it gets cold and we want to make a fire. And how do you open the flu? The key, the key goes to the flu. Honestly, I was a little disappointed because I was hoping it would be some like treasure chest.

I would pull up some board and like launch my own national treasure and I'd get to be Nicolas Cage or something like that. But alas, it was not to be. But the key had a purpose. It didn't make sense until you found the purpose. You see, that's what life is like until you find your place in God. You know that it's designed for something, but you're just not quite sure what it is yet.

C.S. Lewis says that this is one of the most powerful arguments there is for the existence of God. Here's what Lewis says. A baby feels hunger. Well, there's such a thing as food.

A duckling wants to swim. Well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire.

Well, there's such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures can satisfy that yearning, well, earthly pleasures were never really meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, only to suggest the real thing.

You see, what the Bible teaches you is that beauty that you yearn for in a sunset, that sense of peace, that sense of eternity when you look out into the stars, is there because God made it, and God made it as a whisper and an echo of Him. Because you are made in the image of God, you will never find your place in life until you have found yourself in God. Everything is from Him. It finds its measure and its meaning in Him.

Everything is for Him. It all exists for His glory. You were created for God's glory. You exist for it, and one day you will be measured by how much you lived up to that, and I can promise you, you will only be fulfilled to the measure, to the extent that you embrace the fact that you were created for God's glory. You weren't created for you. You weren't created for sensual pleasures. You weren't even created for romance. You were created for God.

And the arms that you were searching for in romance were actually His arms, and when you figure that out, life starts to make a lot of sense. Number two, before the creation, there was love. Before the creation, there was love.

Let me show you this. In verse 26, God says, let us make man in our image. You read that, you say, well, who is us?

Right? I didn't see anybody else in creation. In fact, remember Isaiah 44 says, God was all by Himself.

Well, who else has slipped in there? That's a great question. Go back to Genesis 1. What you see is that in the first three verses of Genesis, what Christians call the Trinity, that God, one God, one essence of God, existing in three persons is there in the very first verses of Genesis.

Watch. In the beginning, God, the Father, created the heavens and the earth, and the Spirit of God, there's your Holy Spirit, was hovering over the face of the waters. Literally in Hebrew, it's like a dove was fluttering over the waters, and God said, God spoke. That's the word, and the word is the means by which God's going to create everything. You say, well, I can see God, the Father, and I can see Spirit of God, but where do you get like God said, and that equals the word?

Another great question. John chapter 1. When the author, John, the apostle, is going to introduce Jesus Christ to you, he starts by going back and re-quoting Genesis, and he just substitutes a few things. Here we go. In the beginning was the word.

That's right. And the word was with God, and the word was God. There's your Trinity. God is God, but He's also with God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.

Without Him was not anything made that was made. So the word that God used, that the Father used to create everything was Jesus. From the very first chapter, you see evidence that God is a Trinity. Three persons existing in one being, and I know, I know that's hard to understand. Now, I know when you feel, think about it, your mind feels like it's either going to explode or implode, and you can't figure out which one. The best we can do is come up with analogies.

And the problem with analogies is they all break down when you press them very far. But here's what it means for us. In God's very essence, from the very beginning, He's existed in relationship. God didn't create us because He was lonely. He created us as an overflow of His love. The Apostle Paul, in fact, will say that the best analogy that we have for the Trinity is marriage.

That's what the Apostle Paul says. God created marriage as a depiction of the Trinity. In marriage, you've got two persons that come together in one new essence. And by the way, out of that new essence comes a child. In a good marriage, you don't have kids because you're lonely.

If you do have kids because you're lonely in marriage, you're going to screw up the kid. You're supposed to bring the kid into a loving union that the love between the man and the wife spills out into that relationship. Well, that's what we see in Genesis. God's love in the Trinity spills out onto the canvas of the universe, and then He invites His creation into that love. That's why one of the phrases you see repeated throughout Genesis 1 is the phrase, and God saw, and God saw.

You know why that phrase is all through there? Because God is like a good parent. What do good parents do? They watch their kids all the time. That's why some of you ladies have your nanny cam right now, and you've already checked it three times. You just want to know everything that's going on. Hopefully not now.

Hopefully your kid's not at home. But you know what I mean? You just want to see.

You want to know, oh, they're gurgling. Oh, look at this. They smiled. God loved His creation. He was like a daddy that just was watching everything that was going on.

By the way, I got the most comfort and just depth of meditation just thinking about that phrase this week. God saw. God sees.

Are you going through financial difficulty? God's not distant. God sees it. Have you gone through a heartbreak if somebody betrayed you? Are you worried?

Is your body in pain? God sees it. He's not a distant father. He is a God that is close.

You have not been forgotten. So what Genesis 1 screams at you. Genesis 1 is an overflow of the love of God. You can see that even in the literary structure of the chapter. You see, Genesis 1 is not just a straightforward recounting of the facts. Genesis 1 is a very artistically written piece. There's all this repetition and pattern. Each of the days of creation is told with this pattern where and God said and then God saw it and it was good.

And the evening and the morning were the first day. It's something like a poem or a song. Maybe the best equivalent we have in English is a spoken word. Repeating and it was good at the end of each phrase is like saying, come with it, come, come with it. In Hebrew, that's how you should hear that.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis presents creation happening as Aslan the lion representing Jesus singing the song of joy and intimacy in the Trinity and creation just spills out of that song. Here's what that means for you practically. Listen, because we are created in the image of a God who exists in love, just like our lives will never be complete until God is at the center, our lives will also never be complete until we are living in love and community with others. The path of godliness always leads toward community, always. The path of godlessness always leads toward isolation. The path of godliness leads toward relationships and commitment and things like small groups. Men, let me talk to you for a minute specifically, because as we get older as men, men tend to get more and more isolated.

Right? Just starts with an absence of friends. Think about your dad for a minute.

Can you name his friends? If you're average, you can't. You knew who your mom's friends were, but you don't know who your dad's friends were.

You probably didn't have any. Eventually, we pull inward from our wives. That always leads to destruction and unhealthiness. Proverbs 18 24, an isolated man seeks his own desire and rages against all sound judgment. Or I always give you the quote from David Pallas, and things that grow in a secret garden always grow mutant. Whenever you're isolated, whenever it's secret, it will grow mutant. Not because you're a bad person, but because that's how God designed you to be was in relationship.

And when that's not there, you deform. God created our hearts and lives to work only when we are in deep committed community with others. You know that, by the way.

You know that instinctively. Just ask yourself, how much different would your life have been if you had grown up in community? What kind of difference would that have made in your home growing up if your parents and your family had been surrounded by a godly community?

Would it have prevented your parents' divorce? What would your dad's life have been like if he had close friends who were speaking into his life, supporting him in difficult times, speaking wise in godly counsel? How much different would your life be if you had been in community as you got older?

What stupid mistakes would you have avoided if there were just people around you that were saying, don't do that, that is dumb, don't do that, I know it looks right, don't go that path. How much better would your life be in the days to come if you had community that was walking with you through every situation you go through, speaking words of comfort and strength and power? Don't you inherently know that community leads to life? Don't you know that? The reason that you know that is because it's an inherent part of God's life too.

And you're made in God's image. And that's why your life will never be complete until you're in that deep committed community. I realize that things like small groups can be messy. I realize that sometimes it's easier if people don't know the jungles going on in your life. But I'm just telling you that your life will always be deformed.

It will always be unhealthy when you're not in the kind of relationships that God created you to be in. We were created for community. That's a challenging takeaway from this message titled In the Beginning from Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. If you missed the beginning of today's message, you can hear it online at jdgreer.com. J.D., congratulations on the launch of your new book this week. Why did you name this new book Just Ask? You know, I really wanted to capture the simplicity of prayer, Molly, because a lot of people really have a complicated relationship with prayer because like they have all these questions about, is it changing God's mind? And what about the sovereignty of God? And am I saying the right thing and using the right phrases? When the driving analogy that you find throughout Jesus's teaching in the gospels is that we come to God like children to a parent, a loving parent and a loving parent. You know, my kids, when they come to me, they don't think about anything.

They just ask, they ask whatever is in their heart. And while we want to grow in our maturity as we pray, we also want to have that childlike dependence, that rush toward our Heavenly Father. That's the heartbeat of true prayer. And I was hoping to communicate that to this book. Let us make you one of the first to get Pastor J.D. 's newest book titled Just Ask into your hands. This new book is hot off the presses and we want to get you a copy today. It comes with our thanks when you donate to support this ministry. Ask for our new resource titled Just Ask when you give today by calling 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or if it's easier, you can give and request the book online at jdgrier.com. If you'd rather mail your donation, our address is J.D. Greer Ministries, P.O.

Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 277-09. And if you're new to Summit Life, sign up for our email list. You'll receive Pastor J.D. 's devotional blog posts, as well as the popular Wisdom for Your Weekend posts. Subscribe right now when you go to jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich, and I am so glad that you joined us.

Be sure to tune in next time when we're continuing our study of the creation account in the book of Genesis. That's Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.