WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000 So I'd like for a little while this morning to look back to Genesis chapter 1, which will be the first of our big stories. 00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Like next week we're moving on to Noah's Ark, which is obviously a well-known story. 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:18.000 And I have to say that these sermons are by their nature going to need to be tasters. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:21.000 Okay? They're going to need to be tasters for you. 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:25.000 And by that I don't mean that they're going to be shallow or insignificant. 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:29.000 And I hope that preaching is never that for us and the teaching that comes from it. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:35.000 But what I do hope is that these sermons will wet an appetite as Christians, 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:42.000 and even if we're not Christians, to look more into these passages of Scripture and the passages that surround them. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:47.000 There's really so much you could probably do a series of around about 100 sermons on creation 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:51.000 and the first early two or three chapters of Genesis. 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:59.000 But I hope that you will go from here and move beyond the sermon, that you will supplement the sermon, 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:08.000 that you will find the appetite to look for more resources and spend more time thinking about the implications 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.000 and the truth that is given to us in these chapters. 00:01:11.000 --> 00:01:18.000 We want to, this may be an assumption that's wrong, of course, and you will no doubt correct me if that is the case. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:26.000 But we want to reintroduce more into our Christian thinking and into our Christian psyche the great stories of the Bible. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:34.000 The great well, well-were well-known stories of the Bible and would have been at one time taught in our schools, 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:36.000 but obviously are no longer. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:46.000 I want to remind them, as of the importance of reintroducing them or reminding our children of these great stories as well. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:54.000 And I hope that the families in the congregation might come on board with these sermons and maybe for the sermon that we do on a Sunday, 00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:00.000 that you will spend the rest of that week in family worship or reading the Bible and praying with your children, 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:05.000 that you will use the stories that we're doing and maybe go into different aspects of them, 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:13.000 because we'll never cover all of the story or all of the time that is recorded in these stories. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:21.000 It's important to demythologize these stories which are regarded as myth today and remind ourselves that they still speak. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:28.000 And they still speak powerfully to us because they come from and are given to us by the living God. 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:37.000 And let us seek, and I've asked, obviously we've often asked this here, that we come prayerfully. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:45.000 We come prepared, we come cooperating with each other, that we come both having worked to receive God's word, 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 both as hearers and as preachers together. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:57.000 And that active preparation and that active listening along with the active preaching is something that God will honor and use in our lives, 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:00.000 because we all have different circumstances. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:09.000 We will find that God through His Spirit will apply different parts of the sermon and the text to our lives as we listen for Him 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:12.000 and as we seek His guidance. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:18.000 So, I start with a question, who are we? Who am I? Who are you? 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And it's a very important question, isn't it? It's a very basic question that we ask. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:32.000 Our identity, our belonging, our purpose, we are always asking, well, we are sometimes asking about that. 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:36.000 We are asking about who we are and the identity that we have. 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:43.000 It's hardwired into our lives to know where we come from and to know to whom we belong. 00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:46.000 So, I'm giving you a little bit of portrait history here. 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:52.000 My belonging, I was born in Corpuch, which is on the west coast just beside Fort William. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:57.000 And I was born in a house. I was born in a manse, actually. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:01.000 And my mum and dad were Donald and Joan Lament. 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:05.000 That's my story. That's who I am. 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:11.000 When I think of my beginning, when I think of my identity as a human being, as a person, 00:04:11.000 --> 00:04:18.000 that is what I think of. I think of where I was born and I think of who were my parents. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:23.000 I'm not really that interested in how Corpuch came together as a community. 00:04:23.000 --> 00:04:32.000 I'm not that bothered. I'm not even that concerned about what the stone was used to build the manse 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:36.000 or the biological science behind my formation. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:42.000 That's not what I'm thinking of when I think of who I am and where I'm from. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:47.000 It's not really the point of what I've shared with you. It's a different truth. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:54.000 My story is the truth of my identity, but it's not the whole truth. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.000 I know all these other things are significant and are important. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:02.000 I'm not saying they're not significant and important, but it's not what I'm interested in 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:06.000 when I think of my identity as an ordinary person. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:11.000 And so I think we need to look at Genesis 1 very much in that light also, 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:17.000 and on into the future early chapters of Genesis. It's about who we are. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:23.000 It's about our beginnings. It's about where we are from, our identity. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:30.000 And it is truth. Of course it's truth. It's historical truth, but it's not all of the truth. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:36.000 It's not a scientific account, but it does account for science. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.000 It is early history, but it's not exhaustive history. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:47.000 And so what God is doing here is reminding us of who we are as human beings 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:52.000 and where our identity is and why that gives us significance 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:56.000 and why the whole gospel then fits in to that reality. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:06:04.000 And really these first five words are hugely significant in the beginning God created. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:10.000 These are hugely significant first verses that God has chosen 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:16.000 to open up His account of communication with us using. 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:20.000 So life begins in the beginning. 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:27.000 We recognize that time is linear, that time starts, and time will end. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:31.000 Matter and all that we are made of is not eternal. 00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:38.000 There is a clear beginning, and if that's the case, there is always a beginner. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:48.000 There's always someone who begins the beginning, and God is revealing Himself as the one who began in the beginning. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:52.000 Who began the beginning, it begins with God. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000 Because everything that starts, isn't it right? Everything that begins must have a cause. 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:02.000 Something must begin it. So we have this vast universe. 00:07:02.000 --> 00:07:10.000 The order, the beauty, the natural laws, the variety, the color, the mind and the consciousness of humanity, 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:20.000 the morality, the ethics, the love that we experience and receive did not originate randomly. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:29.000 It's impossible, it's impossible for these things to have simply evolved from matter. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:32.000 Matter before mind as it were. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:39.000 Attributing to mere matter, ordered creative genius. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 It simply can't happen. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:49.000 And everything in science and philosophy and religion points to a beginning. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:54.000 A cause that reflects what was begun. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:58.000 Mind before matter. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:01.000 Not matter before mind. 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:09.000 The matter that is created reflects the mind and the being of the Creator, a living God. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:13.000 In the beginning God created. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:22.000 And so we have recognized here a personal God, a God that goes on to reveal himself in personal terms. 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:36.000 Independent, complex, social, Trinitarian, who existed and exists outside of His creation. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:39.000 Before His creation. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:47.000 A God who in His Spirit and through His Son by the Father worked in creation. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:59.000 He's the source of all the energy and the power that both created and sustains the universe and our lives. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:06.000 Vast, unlimited, unaccountable, good, just, loving. 00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:11.000 We have this God who's in the beginning before the world has created. 00:09:11.000 --> 00:09:16.000 And that should, and I don't think it does, I don't think it does for us for whatever reason. 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:22.000 But it should inspire, I do believe in us more and more, mystery and marvel. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:34.000 There is a huge mystery in the thought of a non-matter, an eternal, an uncreated being at the source of the universe. 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.000 We must stop comparing Him to ourselves. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:43.000 We must stop putting Him alongside ourselves as if He's just one of us, but a little bit bigger. 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:47.000 That He is incomparable and He is God. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:49.000 And there's huge mystery in that. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:54.000 There's actually a huge mystery in the universe and its creation anyway, whether we believe in God or not. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:55.000 Mind-blowing mystery. 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.000 But we channel that mystery into worship of the living God. 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:01.000 And we also marvel. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:07.000 We marvel because, for example, what science has allowed us to achieve and to see. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:12.000 How it has scratched the surface, even of the size of the universe. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:22.000 And we have these accounts of how great and how marvelous and how huge and how vast the universe is that science tells us. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.000 And it's all inspiring beyond our understanding. 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:33.000 How it goes on for, I'm not going to give and repeat, facts because they could go on forever. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:42.000 But there's great power and vastness even in the physical universe, expanding all times and also running down. 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:50.000 But there's also this tiny planet earth, tiny, tiny planet earth, this grain of sand. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:56.000 With all its intricate detail, life and beauty and intimacy. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:06.000 You've got this great God who we marvel at His power and also at the intimacy and detail of the creation that He's made. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:12.000 And we need to understand both aspects of God as we seek to develop our knowledge of Him. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:20.000 So we have a personal God here and a personal God who creates. In the beginning, God created. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:26.000 And it speaks of creation, ex nihilo, out of nothing. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 There was nothing. He created from nothing. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:35.000 In other words, it's the source by the power of His word. 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:42.000 Now that in itself has huge implications for every single atom of our existence. 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:51.000 For every moment of consciousness that we are, that this word says in the beginning, God created. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.000 We can't trivialize Genesis 1 verse 1. We can't throw it away. We can't ignore it. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:05.000 It's the single most important statement in the universe and in your life. 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:10.000 I spoke about my human identity, but there's a deeper identity, isn't there? 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:16.000 To even who my parents were and where I was born and in what surroundings I was born. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:22.000 It's about our identity in the universe, in the world in which we live. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:31.000 And these five words begin to answer for us the really big questions that we are very good at suppressing. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:38.000 That we are very good at ignoring in our lives and so that so much of our lives we just go on in a routine, don't we? 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:48.000 And we go on doing what we do every day and we suppress the big questions about who I am and why this world came into being 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:55.000 and what it's about and why am I here and what is life for and what's the point? 00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:03.000 We can spend a great deal of time suppressing that question and simply skipping along in our lives, 00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:12.000 not thinking beyond the surface because it's hard and because it's uncomfortable for us to think about these big, big questions. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:18.000 And yet, Genesis 1 and the first five verses challenges us to do so. 00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.000 Who creates a personal God? 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:26.000 A personal God who creates by His word. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:35.000 He creates by His word, verse 3, goes on to record the first recorded words of God in the Bible 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.000 and I think first are significant usually in the Bible. 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:43.000 And here we have, let there be light. 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:55.000 Huge significance in the recording of what God wanted recorded as He shared that with Moses in the recording of these early chapters of Genesis. 00:13:55.000 --> 00:14:06.000 This was what God first spoke, the physical light of life, along with in many ways the light of disclosure, isn't it? 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:10.000 Let there be light, He's saying, let there be light on this world. 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:18.000 Let there be light on how it was formed and how it began and His word enables us to live but also to see. 00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.000 It brings us the perspective into life and who we are that we need to see. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:32.000 He breathes life into creation through His word, through communication, isn't it great? 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:36.000 It doesn't say God by His action created. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:44.000 It's not that He came aside and used His hands to mold the universe, but it says He spoke the world into being. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:57.000 By communication He created, He revealed His great power and of course there's a flash of further light in John 1 verse 1, 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:03.000 in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:12.000 So there's this core reality of communication and the very nature and being of God that's creative and powerful 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:17.000 and social in its very being, divinely social. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:25.000 And it reflects, of course, I'll say a little bit more about this as we close, the character of God Himself who is the light of the world, 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:30.000 He brings light, spiritual light, the light of life. 00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:38.000 His indelible stamp is on creation as He speaks these words, let there be light. 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:45.000 It's His seal. This world has one good owner, Lord God. 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:51.000 So it's a personal God who creates, who creates by His word and who creates with artistry. 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:55.000 We simply don't have time this morning, I said it's only a taster. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:00.000 We simply don't have time to go through the six days and the seventh day rest of creation. 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:08.000 But the literary structure of Genesis chapter 1 is artistic and is beautiful. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:15.000 It's poetic and it's an unfolding of God's work in creation. 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:24.000 So you're moving, and it's very structured if you take time to look at it, it speaks at the beginning in verse 2 of the earth. 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:30.000 It was without form and void. It was formless and it was empty. 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:38.000 There was a kind of a primeval chaos into which God spoke order. 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:46.000 And so you've got the first three days kind of bringing form to the world and separation, 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:49.000 light and darkness and land and sea. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:56.000 And then the days 4, 5 and 6, you've got the void of these days being filled. 00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:01.000 So there's plants and animals and fish and sea. 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:09.000 Everything that is to fill these different created aspects of his universe 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:16.000 coming to culmination in the creation of humanity. 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:23.000 And if you notice the way we're reading, you'll see that Corrie had the longest bit to read. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:26.000 He's the best reader, but that wasn't why. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:36.000 It was because it was the sixth day. And that has a longer communication from God 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:43.000 as it unfolds the creation of humanity, of which we're apart. 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:50.000 And it's done, and as we see this in its summary form, as it speaks of creation, 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:57.000 it's done with imagination and with artistry and with variety and with glory and with beauty 00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:07.000 and with skill and perfection, maybe beyond anything that we are prone to maybe attribute 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:11.000 or understand as part of God's nature and character. 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:22.000 I think it's easy for us to bind God's relevance and lordship to our inanimate souls, 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:28.000 to that invisible part of our being, which is kind of separate from the day-to-day world we live in. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:33.000 So we live our lives and we do what we do, but Jesus is only important about our soul. 00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:37.000 That little bit of our life that we give a couple of hours to, or we think about it now and again, 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:42.000 or we hope we'll have an insurance policy over it when we die and might get to heaven. 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:47.000 And we think somehow that God isn't interested in the day-to-day cares of this world 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:54.000 or the reality of the beauty and the acknowledgement of the beauty of this world. 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:59.000 But He originates this stuff, His stuff. 00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:08.000 It's a world of Him and His world that He's created and art and beauty and life and physicality 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:11.000 and all that makes up the world in which we live. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.000 It's not out of His domain. 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:20.000 It's not like He is a little bit of ownership in our soul and the rest is for the devil or the world or for whatever. 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.000 It's His world. 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:27.000 He made it and it's how many times has it repeated in the midst of each section? 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:30.000 It was very good. 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:33.000 It was very good. It was great. 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:37.000 Everything that He created was beautiful in its time. 00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:42.000 And we recognize that and He creates with artistry. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:47.000 And as Christians, He demands our lordship over all these things, 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:54.000 over our eating and our drinking and our pleasure and our response to the world in which we live 00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:00.000 and our environmentalism and everything that is part of the world in which we live. 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:06.000 We take a Christ-centered approach to it because it's His world. 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:13.000 He creates with artistry and He's the one who creates image bearers. 00:20:13.000 --> 00:20:17.000 Verses 26 and 27 speak about that. 00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:19.000 Humanity. 00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:21.000 Man and woman. 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:26.000 Dependent on Him for life. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000 Mind before matter. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.000 We didn't simply evolve into being. 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.000 It's mind before matter. 00:20:37.000 --> 00:20:39.000 We are dependent. 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:41.000 We are worshipers. 00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:44.000 We are creators in His image but not like Him. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:46.000 We are communicators. 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.000 We're explorers. 00:20:48.000 --> 00:20:50.000 We're lovers of love. 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:52.000 We were lovers of God. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:57.000 We were lovers of each other, of morality and of good and of justice. 00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:01.000 Lovers of community and lovers of society in His image. 00:21:01.000 --> 00:21:06.000 Conscious and moral beings. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:10.000 Distinct, separate, sexes. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:19.000 Sex not being a social construct but a revelation of how He has made us gloriously diverse, 00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:25.000 different, physically, sexually, psychologically, physiologically, 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:37.000 and in every different way, together in society, image bearers of the divine. 00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:43.000 Whatever this doesn't speak of, and whatever it doesn't reveal, 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:49.000 it does reveal that we are not glorious accidents, 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:57.000 that we are not random genetic formulations with no ultimate meaning and no ultimate purpose, 00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:03.000 that we are not alone in this universe. 00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:09.000 We are God-reflectors, and we are made for relationship with Him, 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.000 made by Him for relationship with Him. 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:18.000 And if you are running away from that, you are running away from the essence of your being, 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:22.000 which is to be in relationship with God, and all that that means. 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:28.000 Don't run away from that essence of your being, which is to be in relationship with God. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:37.000 And that brings it very briefly for the last couple of minutes to how creation echoes the gospel. 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:43.000 The creation in Genesis 1 echoes the gospel, 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:49.000 and it's hard to make sense of the gospel without Genesis 1, and all that it speaks of, 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:54.000 because what we go on to see, and we obviously didn't have time to look at the other chapters, 00:22:54.000 --> 00:23:04.000 was that humanity rejected the word of light, rejected God saying, let there be light. 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:12.000 They rejected His Lordship, and they rejected dependence on Him, 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:22.000 and introduced a monumental reversal into creation and into a relationship with Him. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:29.000 So the move from formlessness and voidance, chaos, primeval chaos to order and beauty, 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:37.000 begins to be dissembled, begins to unravel because of a rejection of God. 00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:39.000 We wanted to be God. 00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:45.000 Humanity wanted to be independent, simply to be in control. 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:46.000 Self-Lordship. 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:47.000 Don't want God. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.000 Don't require God. 00:23:49.000 --> 00:23:51.000 We wanted it all. 00:23:51.000 --> 00:24:02.000 So that darkness began to encase the light, and death was His curse on life as judgment, 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:10.000 and chaos began to prevail in the natural world in which we live. 00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:17.000 Separation from Him and His life marred that creation. 00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:27.000 God introduced hatred where there wasn't any, and division which clouds great love of God, 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:37.000 and ugliness where there was only beauty, and ugliness which becomes lauded and replaces beauty. 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:38.000 And we channel worship. 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.000 It's not that we cease to worship. 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.000 It's not that we cease to be dependent. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:52.000 We cease to live like that, but rather we channel it all everywhere except God. 00:24:52.000 --> 00:24:59.000 And usually it's internally focused on self-ideality and self-Lordship. 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:08.000 And so in Christ what we have is the word, Genesis, John 1.1, the word becoming flesh. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.000 This word of light and of life becoming flesh. 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:21.000 The ultimate mystery that there is in the universe is that the uncreated one becomes flesh. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:29.000 The image maker becomes the image bearer in order to rescue us. 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:30.000 Because it was great love. 00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:33.000 He didn't want to leave the situation as it was. 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:38.000 He didn't want to leave us facing death and separation and all that goes with it. 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:47.000 And He speaks so that in John 8 verse 12, and if the guys have got that, yeah, again Jesus spoke to them saying, 00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:48.000 what does He say? 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:51.000 God said in Genesis 1, let there be light. 00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:54.000 Jesus says, I am the light of the world. 00:25:54.000 --> 00:25:59.000 Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. 00:25:59.000 --> 00:26:13.000 I've got this great spoken word of Jesus who has come to restore beauty and life and grace and forgiveness with God vertically and horizontally with one another. 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:20.000 He speaks, but He dies. 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:22.000 That's what is uniquely different, isn't it? 00:26:22.000 --> 00:26:33.000 He dies. He came as the light of the world and He comes into the darkness and death of this world and on the cross He Himself dies. 00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:46.000 So awful is that isolation and forsakenness and loneliness, if we can, ultimate loneliness, separation from life and the Father and everything. 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:53.000 That creation itself at that moment would not shine. The sun would not shine. 00:26:53.000 --> 00:27:03.000 So you've got that strange moment where it says that darkness came over the face of the land from the ninth hour to the twelfth hour. 00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:12.000 The all-powerful one, drained of His glory, the author of life, giving Himself over to death on a tree in Palestine. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:15.000 Crazy, isn't it? 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:17.000 So that we might live. 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:23.000 And then, in His resurrection and His ascension, He recreates. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:33.000 So there's a real paralleling between the original creation and the recreation in rescue and in salvation. 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.000 Titus 3 verse 5 it says, 00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:59.000 So there's a recreation going on in our lives as believers. 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:07.000 He is bringing order and bringing beauty and bringing love and relationship with Him back. 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.000 There will be a recreated universe, but not yet. 00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:17.000 Currently, He is re-birthing, recreating, remaking a people. 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:26.000 And as we trust in Jesus Christ and His living Word, He is turning us and He continues to turn us upside down. 00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:38.000 He works that, Genesis 1 literary pattern of moving from spiritual chaos to order and to beauty and to hope and to relationship. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:41.000 Everything, it's all encompassing. 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:46.000 We've moved from death to life as Christians, and it's hugely significant. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:57.000 So in the beginning, God created is a massively significant truth that is reflected in Jesus Christ and in what He has done. 00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:07.000 So our Christianity, whatever else it is, please never make it a wee jaunt to church now and again. 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:10.000 Never make it a wee prayer at the end of the day. 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:21.000 And a wee wink at God now and again, just when we feel a little need for a bit of spiritual perspective. 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:28.000 Never let Him be your back pocket God, that we slip out of our back pocket now and again. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:37.000 As Christians were restored into communion with the living God and the darkness is being dispelled, 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:43.000 I know that often we sense that darkness and we can't see as we want to. 00:29:43.000 --> 00:29:48.000 We simply can't and we feel more like we're in the darkness than we are in the light. 00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:58.000 We need to persevere and we need to ask Him to enable us to see His light more and more and live in the light. 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:00.000 That's what He wants us to do, isn't it? 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:06.000 He has redeemed us to live in the light and so often we choose to plunge ourselves back into darkness, 00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:13.000 maybe by our attitude to God, our attitude to one another, or our carelessness, or our greed, or our selfishness, 00:30:13.000 --> 00:30:19.000 or our lack of our self-righteousness, or our pride, whatever it might be, there's lots of things, isn't it? 00:30:19.000 --> 00:30:23.000 That we choose to hold on to the dark things we like. 00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:26.000 I'm keeping, I'm keeping here. 00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:35.000 And He says, let's move from darkness to life and appreciate that recreative work that He cooperates, 00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:42.000 that He encourages us to cooperate with as He does His work, as He communicates to us in His Word, 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:45.000 and as we seek to share that with others. 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:52.000 And maybe be able to do that and know His life and His light and His love in our lives. 00:30:52.000 --> 00:30:56.000 Amen. Let's pray briefly together. 00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:06.000 Father, we ask and pray that you would take your word and that you would challenge us with that word, 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:15.000 that we would not throw aside as being mythical, or irrelevant, or meaningless. 00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:25.000 But as we, in our minds, identify where we were born and who our parents were and are, 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:35.000 and what formed us as people, may we see what God is seeking us to understand through His living word, 00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:37.000 which tells us of beginnings. 00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:45.000 And we thank God to see this morning that we are not random molecules with no purpose, 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:54.000 with no meaning, with no mind behind our creation, with no order and no love and no direction. 00:31:54.000 --> 00:31:59.000 We thank you that we do have an ultimate purpose and we are made in your image, 00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:07.000 and we'll find life eternally in your rescue and in your salvation. 00:32:07.000 --> 00:32:12.000 And we acknowledge today so much mystery, so many things we don't know. 00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:18.000 May we never be smart, Alex, who always think or who think we always have the answers. 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:28.000 May we bow sometimes simply to our own ignorance and the mystery of the world and the universe in which we live, 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:31.000 and put our trust in you nonetheless. 00:32:31.000 --> 00:32:39.000 Because although it may not be revealed, we do believe you know, and you have chosen to reveal what you've revealed. 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:45.000 And Lord, we pray that you would make us humble and gracious and gentle and strong. 00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:57.000 As we live out our Christian lives seeking to be recreated, moulded, directed and renewed by your grace and by your Holy Spirit. 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:19.000 For Jesus' sake, amen.