In the Beginning| Chris B

This message was preached  by Chris Burton at Word of Grace Church on January 22nd, 2017. To listen/download the audio please click here. To listen to the Sunday's worship and prophetic contributions please click here

This morning we will start in the beginning, in Genesis 1.

Genesis1- Read entire chapter

That is the story of creation. Creation answers a lot of Big and deep questions, like who am I, where did I come from, what’s the purpose of all this? But fundamentally, we learn about our God- who he is and what he does. It is easy to miss.

We are going to slow jam the creation the story. What it’s going to tell you is that our God is great and good. Great as in awesome, magnificent, mighty! In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.

1.      The scope of his creation is great.

Q. What is scope?

If you were walking around 6000 years ago, what scope means is, if he looked around on the earth, it is all created by God- the mountains, rivers, seas, animals, plants, everything. The scope of his creation reveals his greatness.

That same scope remains true for us today. There are places on the planet that haven’t even been discovered to explore. We are finding new species of animals and plants today. It’s true of the heavens. We are discovering more and more planets, and other stuff we never knew about.

2.      The nature of his creation- he said, let there be and there was. He made everything out of nothing. I will need things from you in order to make something from you. We need raw materials to make anything. But God says, and it’s done.

3.      The method of creation- One story of the ancient Babylonians of creation is that of a war that some god had to strive and vanquish a foe to create. But our God doesn’t strive. He suffers for his creation later, but he doesn’t suffer in creating.

It doesn’t just happen, but it is good. The result of God’s creation is something good and wholesome. God in the first 3 days creates and next three days, fills and makes beautiful. He creates, the sun and moon, seasons, seas and skies, and fills them with animals and plants. Finally, even the land he fills with vegetation and animals and finally us.

When we are doing things, we are to do them as excellent stewards. He gives the whole earth to man to steward. It’s a pretty big task.

We also see God’s goodness in this passage. It’s noteworthy that before God creates mankind, he’s already fulfilled all of his needs. Before they even know what their needs are, they have already been fulfilled by a God who loves them. This is true of us too.

2 Tim 1: 8-9- “So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,” Do you treasure the fact that our king has come to become a man, suffered for us, saved us? When did this happen? 

Before the creation of the world, he knew his son would die for it. That is the goodness of our Lord.

Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again),  Spirit filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that have people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.