God Is Creator

[0:00] Good morning. I was saying to Willie when we were having coffee in Costa, which we do every day, not every day, every week.

[0:13] I was saying to him, I was reading, this man said, you know, with all our power, all man's kind knowledge, we can't make a fly.

[0:26] And last week when I was in Hereford visiting my older son, I stepped outside the door in the lovely English countryside, and there at my feet were the first ants I've seen since I was in Australia last year.

[0:42] There were ants running all over the place, outside his house in England. And I walked out, I stepped over them, I didn't stand on them. I stepped over them and I took a seat and I sat on the grass.

[0:53] And just as I sat down to read something, this tiniest little fly landed with my breath, and it went away.

[1:06] And I thought what that man said. Put all the power together, we can't make a fly. We can't give life to anything.

[1:19] That's how significant, that we've been singing about, that God created the heavens and the earth.

[1:36] There was nobody there but God. Get your head around that. You've been doing it since you were a baby. You still can't grasp it.

[1:49] It's a revelation in Scripture. The Scripture is revelation. It's not just knowledge and information. Genesis 1.1, In the beginning, beginning of what?

[2:05] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There was no time before that.

[2:16] The beginning of Him creating the heavens and the earth started time, day and night. We're talking about, we're talking about the most unique person ever in the universe, and ever will be in the universe.

[2:37] and with all our wonderful imagination, we can make a fly. Isn't that humbling?

[2:53] Why do we boast so much? Why are we so proud? Let me read to you Acts 17 in your Bible from verse 22.

[3:07] Paul is talking to a bunch of Athenian philosophers who've got a symbol to an unknown God. He says, I'm going to tell you who He is.

[3:18] What an amazing servant of God He was. Verse 22, Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, People of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious.

[3:32] Hmm? For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription to an unknown God.

[3:44] So you are ignorant of the very thing, listen to this phrase, you are ignorant of the very thing you worship. Take that in.

[3:59] You're ignorant of the very thing you worship. I'm here to worship, but I don't know who I'm worshiping.

[4:17] He's absolutely right, of course. I even found an altar with the inscription to an unknown God, so you're ignorant of the very thing you worship.

[4:29] That doesn't make sense. That's superstition. And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.

[4:53] And he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives life, gives everyone life and breath and everyone else.

[5:04] Sorry. He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole earth.

[5:18] God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

[5:37] For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, heathen poets, we are his offspring.

[5:59] Isn't that an incredible statement? Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human design and skill.

[6:17] In the past, God overlooked such ignorance. But now, the word now is a very important word in the New Testament.

[6:27] It really should be called the Now Testament. The word now is a very important word in the New Testament. But now, he commands all people everywhere to repent.

[6:42] for he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

[7:05] So, the maker of the world is the giver of life. no other person existed anywhere.

[7:22] Anywhere. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

[7:36] Now, that's such clarity, but that is typical of Scripture. that clarity draws up even an atheist, draws up a secularist, a humanist.

[7:53] That clarity stops people in their tracks to ask the question, well, who else could have made the world?

[8:03] But I don't believe he exists. that doesn't make sense. Who made the world?

[8:20] Why did he make the world? Why did he create the heavens and the earth? God did. It certainly never created itself.

[8:38] And he never got it out of B&M or sent to Amazon for it, which provide everything in the world. God created the heavens and the earth.

[9:00] That clarity says to me, God has all authority in heaven and on earth.

[9:15] Clarity and authority go together. There's nobody can disprove it. The world, the people of mankind, we are amazed at it.

[9:30] It's the most beautiful thing in the universe. There's not another planet like it. It's not this is the maker of the universe who gave us this beautiful nest in which we are born into.

[9:53] There's not another one like it. They can say what they like about, oh, I think we've found in Mars there was water there two million years ago.

[10:07] Wonderful. Talk about reality now. The balance, the knowledge, the beauty in a flower, in a flower, in a rose in your garden, grows in its season.

[10:28] Prune it and it gives you more. who could create? Who could unless they are the most clear-minded, powerful, authoritative person in the universe and then bring us all into it for the years we are given.

[10:53] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the beginning of time. There was no time before that. God is eternal, as our young preacher was reminding us last Sunday, and as Pastor Carl was reminding us the Sunday before.

[11:15] The Creator, the work of God, the Creator, it stops so many people in their tracks in their life.

[11:28] Even if they are an atheist, it stops them in their tracks because they can't explain the wonder of it all in the creation.

[11:42] Many of you have gone away on holiday and come back and think, oh, you want to see the scenery. You want to, we just get, it's so therapeutic to walk into a forest track, go through creation.

[11:55] It's so therapeutic to so many people, they come away feeling refreshed, relaxed, reposed. It's therapeutic.

[12:09] The one who gave us this, of which we are a prime part, as Ruth was sharing, God, he's given that to us.

[12:26] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That clarity, that authority belongs to only one person.

[12:41] God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the progressive revelation of the Bible unfolds and tells us about the economy of the Trinity. But then, there is the greatness of God's word of power.

[13:02] What he sets out becomes reality. glory. That's not the case with you and I.

[13:14] We can dream about doing this, imagine we're doing this, and all the rest of it. But the greatness of God's word of power is not just in taking something out of nothing, making nothing, having nothing, and creating this beautiful universe, earth, but it's the adorning of it.

[13:41] And the thing that really struck me, friends, when I was thinking about this, I need to watch my time, we've only got so long to preach these sermons, when are you expecting, when is you, Alan? We're only like, these are supposed to be short services, aren't they?

[13:57] I'd better hurry up. He's having a good laugh. But if you look at, if you've got your Bible, go to Genesis 1.

[14:12] Let me ask you again, to breathe in before we read this, because we read the Bible with such laxity at times, that you think, do we really grasp what is being said here?

[14:32] Genesis 1, 26, thinking about the greatness of God's word of power, very significantly I've put there, it's a solemn council of the Trinity making and adorning mankind.

[14:54] Now, just stop and think about these words. What we're listening to is the Trinity consulting each other.

[15:07] We just read Jesus in the Bible, we'll make man in our own image. Really? You got that, have you? We're talking here about God, the eternal God.

[15:20] Let us make man. Just breathe in there. Let us make man in our own image, not in the image of the other creatures that we have made.

[15:40] We don't want to make them like that creature or that creature. We've made all the other creatures, but then we have this council among the Trinity at the beginning.

[15:56] Let us make man, but not in the image of any other creature we have made. Let us make man in our own image.

[16:13] Do you realize how unique you are? the Father and the Son and the Spirit are consulting each other.

[16:26] Let us make man now, but not like any of these other creatures we've made. Let us make man in our own image.

[16:38] What does that mean? That's absolutely striking. just pause and think about that. This is the Trinity in heaven consulting each other in our own image.

[16:56] We shall make man. That's who you are.

[17:14] not just anybody. The Trinity consulted each other, and in their perfect oneness and harmony and love and light and purpose, we'll make man in our own image, not like any of these other creatures we've already made.

[17:38] that's why you have the influence you have in this world. That's why we have an understanding and a conscience and insights and a will that no other creature on this planet comes anywhere near having.

[18:05] your goldfish, your cat, your dog, your parrot. Nobody has this distinction that we have, that God the Creator has made us in His image.

[18:31] Wow. You're not just anybody. When God gave the Ten Commandments to the people, the Hebrews, He didn't give the Ten Commandments to ten monkeys.

[18:53] He didn't give the Ten Commandments to ten elephants. He gave them. to the people of God He had chosen and rescued from Egypt and threw them to the rest of the world.

[19:13] Only to people, the Ten Commandments, the moral law of God, so that our conscience would kick in a thing, a matter, an aspect of nature no other creature has.

[19:28] do you realize who you are? Do you realize why there's a judgment day coming? Do you realize why Jesus died in your place?

[19:46] So that at judgment day you're not judged like the unforgiving sinner. The maker of heaven and earth is behind all of this.

[20:01] There is a purpose in it, a plan, and there's the person of God himself. Friends, it's my 20 minutes up.

[20:18] How do you get your head around a revelation from God to you personally? You submit to it. You don't fight it.

[20:30] You submit to it. The clarity and the authority authority.

[20:44] Next, hopefully, quickly, the greatness of his glory. The greatness of his glory. God made the world negatively and positively.

[21:02] What did we read in Acts 17? In Acts 17, 24, this is what it says, basically says, God doesn't need the world and doesn't need you.

[21:18] He's God. He doesn't need anything you can give him. He's God. He doesn't need you. God doesn't need to go hunting to feed himself.

[21:31] God doesn't need to see these words. These heathen philosophers that love to discuss philosophy have been happening there for 200 years since Aristotle and Plato and all these people.

[21:46] But this man says to them, the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.

[21:57] He's not served by human hands and as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

[22:17] God doesn't need us. What does Paul say to the Corinthians? Everything you have received, you have received, why do you act as though you haven't received it?

[22:34] The God who made the heavens and the earth in the beginning doesn't need the earth. The earth is an expression of his glory, the beauty of his holiness, his creativity, and the place to put the people like us, made in his image.

[23:05] What does it say in Psalm 19, 1? I think it's what Stephen read, the heavens declare the glory of God. God said, and since we were this size, we've been amazed at what comes out of the heavens.

[23:27] I was standing in Springburn, it would be four years before I'd be converted, and there on the roof was a blackbird on a chimney while I was waiting for a lift from a friend who was going to give me a lift to work.

[23:44] We worked together, and as I stood there, this bird sang like I was just like. The grace notes from the bill of this bird was absolutely extraordinary.

[24:01] And I could hear it above the buses and the cars and the noise and the people, and I listened and I can hear it now in my head. And my question was, Mr.

[24:13] Bird, who are you singing to? Who was it singing to? It was absolutely phenomenal. Four years later, when I got converted, the image of that bird came back into my mind.

[24:36] As I read the words in Drumchapel Baptist Church, loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know, spirit breathing from above, thou hast taught me, it is so.

[24:58] And especially the line that said, something lives in every hue, Christless eyes, I've never seen. I never seen it, but I seen it that day.

[25:11] This bird, this part, the wonder of the creation that we live amongst. The greatness of His glory is seen in the smallest things.

[25:30] In fish that's not even, that haven't even been discovered yet probably, miles under the sea. But who keeps them there? Is my twenty minutes up yet?

[25:50] Stephen, you'll need to have a bell to ring in five minutes or something. No? Okay. When we think of that clarity and the authority of God, then think of the sufficiency of God.

[26:07] The sufficiency when Solomon built the temple, he needed workmen, he needed tools, they needed all sorts of transport to get from wherever they went.

[26:21] And I've been in those caves in Israel, I've only been to Israel once, but I've been in the caves where they got the rocks for the temple. God made the heavens and the earth without a workman, without a tool, without a barrel, he needed out of nothing.

[26:46] And it's still there. And we're still here. the God who in the beginning made the heavens and the earth friends should amaze us, because in him we live and have our being.

[27:16] We owe him our life. We have no life apart from him. We are his offspring.

[27:31] But yes, I know what you're thinking. And Ruth hinted at this. Something went wrong.

[27:42] in the garden of Eden, Adam being a representative man for mankind, disobeyed God and forfeited the knowledge we had of God, the holiness we had with God, the righteousness we had with God, lost.

[28:08] The image of man lost. Sorry, the image of God lost in mankind. Now, we often talk about someone being lost, and we refer to the image of the shepherd and the sheep, but that's only an illustration.

[28:26] We're not sheep, and God is not a shepherd. He is the creator of the universe. lost. When we talk about people being lost, what we mean is everyone since Adam and Eve have lost the image of God that he gave to us when we read that counsel of the Trinity.

[28:55] Let us make man in our own image lost. evicted from Eden, that flame of fire before the tree of life.

[29:14] And ever since those days, every cottage, every continent, every country, sin is evident, and it's not going to go away without us coming to Christ.

[29:34] So, here's lastly. I've spoken about clarity, authority, sufficiency of God. Let me take you to the last one, Stephen.

[29:47] The necessity of coming back to God. And the image will be restored. word. Let me read you the text that are on the screen.

[30:01] The greatness of the mystery of God, namely Christ, that's what it says in the text, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

[30:12] That's what we lost in Eden. We lost holiness, wisdom, knowledge. We lost it all because the root of sin took place, and the rot started in humanity.

[30:25] glory. And the New Testament testifies, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But look at this.

[30:37] Look at this. The mystery of God, namely Christ. There it is in Colossians 2-3. He writes to these people, now you must rid yourselves of, and he gives a whole list of ethical, moral ways in which they've been living.

[30:57] He says that's not the way a Christian should be living. And then he says, since you have taken off your old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, the new birth, being born again, which is being renewed in knowledge.

[31:17] God what does it say? Read it together. On the image of its creator.

[31:31] The image is restored when you get converted. And the Holy Spirit is the one, from that moment on throughout the rest of your life on earth until you see Jesus, us.

[31:45] The Holy Spirit is the one who will bring the holiness, the righteousness, all back into our life, and reform us into his image.

[31:55] That's why John writes, we shall see him as he is, for we shall be like him. So, the creator of the universe, he hasn't stopped creating.

[32:11] When you become a Christian, what does it say? You become a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. Isn't that fantastic? Isn't that wonderful?

[32:23] And I know that in my life, not being saved until I was 22. The change in my life within, because God has restored the image that I lost through being born into a sinful world.

[32:43] We're all the same, friends. We're all the same. And now he's adorning us and restoring the image so that there is a beauty of holiness within us.

[32:58] And no desire or less desire to seek the world's ways. If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.

[33:09] the old is gone. That should be seen in our lives. When I say I know the Lord Jesus Christ is my Savior, you're saying God is my Savior through Jesus Christ.

[33:26] And I'm now restored to a holy relationship, God is the evidence, the seal of that. So, please, don't separate creation and the cross.

[33:42] They are not different worlds. They are the same world, from the same mind, from the same God, who in their consultation said, let us make man in our own image.

[34:01] Sounded like they all agreed. And then came the enemy, the liar, the tempter. And the world is now getting nearer and nearer to the day when the Lord returns.

[34:20] And he knows his own. And there is a Lamb's book of life that has the name of every saved person in it.

[34:31] It's the Lamb's book of life. It's not the church's, the Lamb's. He knows those who are his. Are you his? Are you his?

[34:44] Or do you believe that God made the world, but you don't accept that you need to be born from above, as Jesus told Nicodemus, the Jewish religious teacher? You need to be born from above by the Spirit, and the new work begins, and all that we lost is restored, the image is restored, and the new work begins, so that Paul can write, the good work he began in you, he will bring to completion on the day of Jesus Christ.

[35:17] What a God. There isn't any other gods. The rest are all man-made, just the one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[35:31] One little story before I go to my seat, I'll hand back to Alan. The phrase in 1 John, he who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son does not have life.

[35:47] Every time I read that verse, I remember the day when I was a youth leader in Bridgeton in Glasgow, running youth clubs in the evening. And we had an open air every Thursday at the corner of the Marnock Road and Muslim Street, where the Bethany Hall was where I was centered.

[36:10] And Annie Darach, from Islay, from Port Charlotte in Islay, Annie preached quite a lot. Annie was a BTI student before I was.

[36:23] And Annie would stand up right at the corner with the microphone, and some days it was only Annie, she didn't really care, she was absolutely fearless, and she would point over at the pub in the corner, you gentlemen at the bar, I know you've heard me before, and I hope and pray God will speak to you, he who has the son has life, he who does not have the son does not have life, please, and she would pray for them publicly from the microphone at the edge of the pavement at Delmarlott Road.

[37:05] I don't know what happened to those men, I don't know if Annie knew either, but friends, the maker of heaven and earth has so loved the world that he made, that he's given his one and only son, whoever believes in him will not perish on judgment day, but of everlasting life.

[37:37] And I say to you now, and I said to the pastor a few weeks ago, and he agreed with me, and I say to you, if any of you sitting here this morning want to take a moment for prayer at the end of the service, please say, and I and I'm sure one or two others would stand and pray with you about whatever it is, because the Holy Spirit speaks, as his word is preached.

[38:06] God bless you. Thank you. Thank you.