God's World Created: Creation and Beauty

Preached by Jaren Singh on 3/10/24

Transcript

0:09

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. Thank you so much for listening. We're startup church. We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together. And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more. You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that. We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today. This morning, this, this sermon series is God's world created today. We're really talking about the beauty in God's creation. You know, as we, as we're going to take a moment to read all of Genesis one, and then just the beginning part of Genesis two in a minute. And what I would say is that the way that, you know, we can read Genesis and, and miss a lot of the value from it by asking questions that, uh, that, that take away from, from the meaning. And what do I, what am I saying? Well, we don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water and really people use Genesis. Is it, does that, Oh, that means it's, this is why the Bible can't be true because I believe in an old earth or people will read it and say, well, this is exactly what the Bible says. So it's exactly what it means. And, uh, and in all of this, if we get into debates like that, what we do is we actually lose a lot of the meaning and the value that's put in God's word in the book of, in, in Genesis one. Um, these are the questions that I want to, I want to challenge you to ask yourself, certainly as you read the Bible, but maybe more specifically as you read a parts of the Bible that seem to be a bit confusing. What does that mean for us today? But in order to get there, we have to ask ourselves, what is this text communicate about the character of God? What is this text communicate about humanity in general? And then, and then more specifically, what does this text say about you? And if we, if we go on our journey and if we are constantly asking ourselves, what does this communicate about, about God, about the God who's big and expansive, but very intricate and cares about us deeply, what does it communicate about him? We're going to grow in our relationship and our appreciation for God. If we ask ourselves, what does this text communicate about humanity? What we're going to do is grow in our awareness of how to help people, right? Because we understand there's, there's differences in, you know, we were different in so many, in so many ways, but the heart of humanity is, is the same. And the Bible is able to identify that. And then, and then looking specifically in your life and asking, what does this text communicate about, about you personally is going to help us have this dynamic relationship with God. Amen. So I'm, I'm challenging you guys this morning to, this is where, where I don't even know if I want to say it this way, but I'm telling you guys to leave what you know about God at the door just for a moment, then pick it up before you leave. But, but leave what you know about God for a moment. And I want to, uh, if we're talking about creation and if we're talking about beauty and it's stuff that's a little bit whimsical, I want to even challenge you right now to close your eyes and just imagine what's occurring right now as I read in Genesis one. Okay. It says in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters and God said, let there be light. And there was light. God saw that the light was good and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day. And God said, let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water. So he made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so God called the vault sky and there was evening and there was morning the second day. And God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear. And it was so God called the dry ground land and the gathered waters he called seas and God saw that it was good. Then God said, let the land produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds. And it was so the land produced vegetation, plants, plants bearing seed according to their kind and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times and days and years. And let them be lights and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars and God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on earth and to govern the day and night and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God said, let the waters team with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky. So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing from with which the water teams and that moves about in it according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas and let the birds increase on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day. And God said, let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds, the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground and the wild animals each according to its kind. And it was so God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds and all the creatures that moved along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image and the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw all that he had made. And it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day, thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. This is the creation narrative. This is what we're going to look at this morning. And as we look at it, we're going to ask ourselves these three questions. What does this communicate about God? What does it communicate about humanity? And then what does it say about us personally? We're going to look at three different things that I believe this text communicates about God. And then we're going to look at what that means for us. If we are made in the image of God, then what God determines is valuable and is very good is what we should determine as valuable and very good as well. Amen? Amen. God takes something that is formless and empty and he gives it structure. And so the first thing we're going to look at is that God gives structure to our world. This first picture, it starts with chaos though, right? It says there's chaos going on and it says the spirit of God hovers over the waters. So, the Hebrew people, they weren't seafarers, they didn't view the sea as something that they could take control of. The sea was something that they were scared of. It was reckless and it was chaotic. It was formless and empty. There's this wild, this wasteland basically. So God takes this formless and empty thing and he makes it into something that has structure. We see the structure all over, right? First it says, you see this pattern in what's written, that there's day and then there's night. Then he creates the sea and the sky and the land. He creates the vegetation, but he doesn't just say that he creates the vegetation. He says this is what the vegetation are going to do. They're going to have seeds that then make more. From all of the, you know, if you took, I know Spencer and Maya, these guys love looking at all these different documentaries and stuff like that. I think they're amazing. I love to get the spark notes from them, the cliff notes from them, I guess either way, either website. I love to get it from them as opposed to watching them a lot of times. But there are a number of, if you just looked up on YouTube, you just looked up how big the universe is, you would be blown away. You would feel like, I'm just not, I can't even understand it. And if you were to look at how small this tiny micron atom, I don't even know the right words, maybe a scientist does or someone who just is in science class, yeah, Grace knows all that stuff. You would be overwhelmed because it's so, it doesn't mean anything to us. It's so big and yet it's so small. For sure. God created all of that. Yeah. Yeah. He created the structure, the sun and the moon to give us years and months and how to order our days. Finally, he then he creates the plants and then he creates the people or rather the animals and he tells them to do something. He says, go ahead and multiply them. And then he leaves a bunch of instruction for us, right? He says, here, I'm creating you and I'm not just creating you, then go do your thing. And we can read the Bible. Some people might think this, that God just wished it into motion, spoken into motion, then took a step back and now he lets us do our thing. And the reality is God gives us a bunch of instruction. This is, this is how to order your days. This is what to do. This is what to spend your time doing. This is how you are. You know, this is what I'm giving you to take control of. And then later we learn, this is what he says, don't, don't do this thing. Our week then is structured, even in the way that, that, that this, this is structured as well, right? There's six days and then the seventh day of rest. Some of us are better at taking rest than others, but it's the direction. So what does this say about God then? What is, what is this text communicating to us about God? Well, a few things, I think he created this world that, that was chaotic. He created it with the intention of structure and he created it with the intention of structure so that we could thrive. There's an insecurity that is, that is bred through uncertainty. What do we do next? I don't know what we do next. That creates some insecurity. It's something you, you, you learn as, if you're as a parent, it's something you learn as a coach. If you tell somebody, this is what a success is for you, certainly on a, in a team aspect. Well, the success is winning, but how do you even get to a win? There's a lot of ways to get there. It's really difficult. And if, you know, Spencer understands this, I, you know, anyone who's been a coach specifically of young kids understands this, that especially with basketball, everyone thinks my job is to score and you have to teach them. Well, no, the success in your role is you're just going to be the one that passes to everybody else. That's, that's your success. The success in your role is you're going to be the one who gets all of the rebounds, the balls, plays really good defense and grabs it. That's going to be your success. And it creates one, it's, it's a check for even young kids pride, but, but it, it gives people an opportunity to understand this is what, how I know if I did a good job or not. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense. You know, there, there's, there's a podcast I was just listening to, Festus told me to listen to it just yesterday. And it was about the importance of structure for, for children. And they found a few things. They found that the children that were most successful were the ones that had a basic structure to their lives. And they understood a basic structure in terms of discipline, in terms of meals. And then in terms of, if I do this, this is what occurs. And so they, you'd understand that what, what happens though, is children learn delayed gratification through this structure, that if you do your homework, then there's something waiting for you at the end, you, you, you can go play with your friends. Children without structure. And this is, I, you know, I, I'm not, I'm, I'm sharing this and I'm, I'm feeling you know, I feel convicted by it and stuff that we want to learn a bunch, but children learn structure and they're able to thrive. And what we would think would make the most sense is that children who would thrive in chaos, you know, in the world, the world is chaotic. And so if I provide so much structure for my children, then as soon as they go out in the world, they're going to, they're going to really struggle is what would make sense. But what they found is that the children who are most successful at taking proper risks and understanding the value of taking a risk versus following the status quo are the ones who are given structure from the time they're young. You know, I, we, we, we, I think we're made to, to like structure. I don't know about you, but over the course of my life, I don't know that I really liked structure all that much. You know, I, I, that's one of the, that was one of the reasons why I just was so excited about doing ministry was that you kind of get to order your day how you want it. And sometimes somebody orders your day for you and says, let's meet and it's really important. Okay, I'll do that. And, and all of my days are just a little bit different. Um, but, but I believe we're made to, to like structure because God, God likes structure. You can take it to a far extent. And so if you are hearing everything that's being communicated and you're like, yeah, I'm telling people to do that. Maybe you're taking it to a far extent. Uh, but all I know is that our daughter, Jordan, she's four. And if you were to ask her what happens on Monday, she would tell you Monday's family day. Um, if you said what happens on Tuesday, she knows Tuesday is a school day. Wednesday is Laura day. That's the day Laura comes over and, and, and plays with her. Usually Thursday is another school day. And Friday, if you said what happens on Friday, that's Ponglama day. Uh, and, and, and it was, it was interesting. I, I, I don't, I don't know where it, where it fits exactly. I just, it was something that even from the time, I mean, she's four, she just turned four, but even when she was three, she couldn't understand fully like what day is today, what's happening next. But she would wake up and ask, what is it? Is it church day? No, it's not church day. Oh, is it? Oh, is it school day? Yes. I don't feel good. You know, like, and she would, she would kind of understood, she understood, she's trying to order. She's trying to order like, what is coming next? I believe, I believe us to be similar though, you know, we ought to examine our lives and see where is there chaos that doesn't have to be, that doesn't have to be there. That's good. And if we're, if we're designed in God's image, uh, then, then what we are is we're also creators. We're, we're in charge of our lives. You have the ability. What I'm not saying is do this. This is the exact right structure. That's not what anyone's communicating, but it's worth asking, where does your life lack structure? And even in this podcast that I was listening to it, you know, it's a secular podcast. It wasn't about Christianity, but they, they said something that was pretty insightful. They said, you know, if you ask anybody to, if they should create a routine in their life, they are what their tendency would be to say no. And yet if somebody comes to them and says, my life is chaos, what should I do? They would probably give them a routine to follow. Will you wake up at wake up for 30 minutes earlier and do this a little bit or have packed the kids lunch before, you know, whatever, whatever they would tell you. And so a question for us to ask a question that I want to ask you is if, if you were a friend to yourself, where would you create more structure in your life? If you were, if you were a friend to yourself, no, you're so you're not, you've got to take yourself out. But if you just saw your, your friend's life and it looked exactly like yours, what would you say, honey, or bro, we got to change some stuff. Mercy. It was on purpose. Yeah. Right. Don't, we're not that church. All right. The other thing is that God fills our world. The first God creates structure. Second God fills our world. It's amazing that God tells us to do, to do the same. He fills the world with light. This barren ground becomes vegetation, the sun and the stars, they don't just shine, but it says he gives them the opportunity to fill and then to rule the day and the night. The waters are in one specific area. The birds fly across the expanse of the heavens and then God tells us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. What is, what does this, what does this mean then? What does this tell us about God? It communicates he wants us to live a full life. He doesn't want us to, to feel empty and to feel like nothing and to feel inconsequential. This is, it's a, it's a struggle because we're trying to communicate how big God is while also saying, well, we have a lot of value as well. And that's something that's not an easy, it's not easy that God is so big and that in some regard we are expendable, but God wants us to live a full life and he wants to be near to us and he wants us to live a life that is worshiping him, which is a full life. Jesus says the same thing. He says, he's talking about, he's talking about evil, basically people who are deceivers. And he says, you guys, they have a voice and, you know, but then he says, listen to my voice. He says, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Yeah, for sure. For sure. He wants us overflowing and filled up. Well, how can we be overflowing and filled up and not chaotic? I, I don't know exactly, like there's structure that has to be created. I think there's wisdom in all of this. But I want to ask, what are, what are we filling our lives with? Again, be your friend for a second. And just, just consider you're your friend, so you're not yourself. You can give yourself every out. You know, people say that, that we judge ourselves on our motives and we judge others based on their actions. Okay. So, so if you're your friend, you're kind of judging based on actions. Does your daily, weekly life, does it reflect the heart of God? Are you, are you overflowing with good as we think about what's the difference between being we're filled with something, what's the difference being, being filled with chaos versus being filled according to God? Are we filled with good that, that out of the overflow, there's so much good fruit that's being born. Think about for your life, what is this week, this, this next week, if you just said, I'm going to live an abundant life, what would you do different? The last thing that, that we see is that God sees the good that we get. You get the image. I don't know if you, when I, when I'm reading it, I'm reading it out, even just reading it out loud, but I probably read, probably read it three, uh, three to four times this week. Um, maybe more probably reliably three or four times. I read this, just Genesis one, uh, this week in straight through and I felt like, wow, there's so many times where he just says, it's good. It's good. Couldn't you have just said at one time, it would have been fine if he just says, does everything it says, it's very good and it calls it a day and yet God looks at every day and he says, you know what? This is good. And then, and then he doubles down at the end of, uh, at the end of it and he, you know, humanities created. He says, it's very good, right? God, what does it say about God? He's not hurried. He's not frenetic. He's not going place to place to place. I got to do this and then I'll be done. I'm going to get to this place so fast, you know, and the idea I'm, I'm guilty of this, but I'm, when I'm, when I'm speeding, I, there's times when I drive and I'm like, I'm not really, why do I want to get somewhere faster? Well, it's not really for any reason. I'm like, I'm not, I'm already early or late. One of the two. Uh, I'm generally not on time. Why am I going to this place so fast? Well, to get there, to sit, you know, or we're going someplace. God's not that way though. He's not running someplace and then stopping. He's, he's, he's, he's calm and he's relaxed and he's not hurried. He's not going from thing to thing. He paces himself. He's calm. He's wise. He's intentional. He appreciates what's going on around him. Yeah, for sure. He takes time to step back and look at, this is what I've created and I, I get the image again, we'll know in heaven of him even, even just sighing, just great relief. Wow. You know, it's good. It doesn't look, uh, if you've ever, uh, I don't know if you're anything that, that we do. You know, I, I feel this, uh, I feel this with when I speak, I feel this, uh, like with lessons or sometimes when I'm playing basketball once in a while and people come watch me, which is almost never now, but, but it used to be, it used to be more and, uh, or, or, you know, if I'm after I rep a game, especially if Spencer is there, I might ask, Hey, was that okay? Or did I kind of, you know, what did I mess up? And there's this insecurity. Like we think like, is this good? And maybe if you, if you do art or if you're at work or you, you put yourself out there, you might wonder like, is this good? God doesn't feel that there's, there's no insecurity inside of him. I mean, he does something and he just says, this is good. Wow. What is this? What is this? What does this tell us then about ourselves? I think we got to be intentional about the times we step back and look at God's creation and we ought to look for the, for the good inside of it in our day-to-day speech with one another and our day-to-day speech, uh, with, with the world around us. There are so many things that we can complain about. There's not a shortage of them, of things that are going wrong in our lives, things that are frustrating. And we don't, we don't paint them as complaints. We paint them as realities, but we keep talking about them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not looking for the good. We're just, we're bringing up everything that, ah, it's not bad. It's just part of life. Yeah. But, but what are you talking about? That's the good part about life. God, God does stuff and says, this is good. It's very good. I believe if God were to look at your life, he would be able to identify a bunch of good in it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That he, and he would look and say, wow, I've done, I've done this and this and this. And it's amazing. The, the bad stuff is only what we've done to ourselves or that somebody has done to us. Uh, he would say, no, I've got the, there's so much good in your life. Yeah. Have you thought about this? It's not that big of a deal. Really? Have you thought about this? Yeah. Somebody always has it worse. Certainly. But even when we're saying somebody always has it worse, generally, generally we're looking at somebody's bad, right? That, oh man, just look at yourself, man. What is good in your life? God would, God would be able to go and have, if you've got to sit down, have a coffee with God, he would go down the list of all the good things in your life. Wow. Yeah. Okay. What's that? The best. Yeah. That'd be, uh, coffee in heaven is going to be crazy, right? If coffee on earth is good, man, coffee in heaven. Next level. Oh my gosh. And we're not going to get tired either. So we don't even need the cafe. We'll just be charged up. Man, it's going to be that good. Man, uh, we're, we're, we're a part of it, right? We're a part of God's amazing creation. And it's good. And he looks at us, he says, it's very good. God looking at your life, he'd say, your life is very good. I don't know how much money you have. I don't know what you've been struggling with. I don't know where you're at in your career. As you look at somebody else, you might say they're better off than I am. God would look at your life and say, you're very good. You've got it very good. I want to, I want to ask us, uh, there, there's going to be a time this week, uh, in the, there's a time this week as part of the, our quiet time, um, series to just identify, but look at the good that God has done in your life and, but then look at what's going good in your life right now. Yeah. You know, as, as we bring this lesson in for a landing, the, the Bible starts in a garden, the Bible ends in the garden as well. We're going to read, uh, Revelation 21. It says, uh, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. This is the new creation that we're hoping for. This is what we are looking forward to. This is what anyone who has said Jesus is Lord and is following God wholeheartedly is looking to. I want to get there one day. I want to see it one day. You know what it says though? We might say, what does this, what does it mean? It says at the end of verse one, it says there's no, there's, there's a lot of things, but there's no sea. Realize that the view of sea in the Hebrew understanding is it's just, it's chaos. Sea is chaos. It's disorder. It's untamable. This is why it's so powerful when Jesus calms the storm, right? And he just, he just says, and they're like, Oh my gosh, who can do that? Even, even the wind and the waves obey him. And then he walks on water and he, and at every, at every step of the way, Jesus is showing I'm able to calm the things you have no idea how to come. And, and, and, and here God says, there's no chaos anymore. You're full, but you're full of only the good stuff. You know, as we look at our week, certainly make, make, make points, take time, make energy to create structure, to be filled with good things, and then to focus on the good. Amen. Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast. If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected. Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on. In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.