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January 5, 2003 | Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Joyful Beginnings"
Genesis 1 (etc)
May I wish you a: Happy New Year or perhaps I should say: A Joyous New Year!?
You may have noted our new focus for this year is the theme of "joy" with a theme verse coming out of Peter's first message to the crowds of Jerusalem. He is speaking to them of Jesus who did not rot in the grave and says in verse 28 a statement this Son of David would make of God: "you have shown me the way of life, and you will give me wonderful joy in your presence."
I read it a few months ago, and two things struck me:
1. One, that Jesus must know what joy is to be found with God.
2. And two, that God's wonderful joy is something I sometimes lose in my efforts, my strivings, my taking myself so seriously I become solemn.
But, if it is said of jesus that He knew He would find wonderful Joy in the presence of God, perhaps, that would be a good thing to keep before all of us this year. I mean, isn't joy something that blesses, empowers, encourages?
I use the term Joy not just to mean feelings of 'happiness' -- and certainly not to mean crude, off color humor. But joy - that river of life that flows from God that sustains, that strengthens, that buoys our lives.
David the Psalmist seems to have known this kind of joy, for he wrote in Psalm 43 that God was his joy and delight.
So, this year, let us look at joy - look at how joy is found and sourced in our God, look at Joy in Jesus the "Man of Joy" look at Joy as it is encountered in and through suffering, look at joy promised to us in the destiny of heaven, joy strengthened by faith in what we believe. In addition there is the joy of giving, the joy lost in that terrible place of hell, the joy found in obedience and in relationship to this awesome God. Will you look with me at joy? There is joy in this journey. And we recognize with that 2nd C dude Athanasius this year that knowledge of our Maker is for us the only really happy and blessed life. (taken from Athanasius' On the Incarnation, p 38)
I. Today, I want to take this moment just to begin to glimpse at God
our source of life and therefore of joy. We don't often speak of God's joy. God is holy, just, merciful, kind, loving, but joyful? I have not often "gone there". However, if God is not joyful, what is that saying of the joys we experience as his creations? Isn't joy an expression of his life through us? If now, where did we come by joy?
When I was attending college at UCSB back in 79 and 80, the Bible study I attended was led by Bob Siegel and his wife. They are awesome in their ability to witness to and win the youth to Jesus. They were often new youth that they were reaching out to. I remember one Bible study when Bob's wife sat with a young woman who was just sobbing and sobbing, while Bob's wife had the biggest smile on her face. You see, she was rejoicing for this young, sobbing college student was coming face to face with her own sinfulness and a Holy God. The end result was when she accepted salvation and was filled with great joy.
I saw that take place often in that season. When someone meets Jesus and receives salvation, or is prayed over and receives a healing, what often follows is such a wash of relief, tears, and joy. There is often even laughter. There is a near giddiness. We say this is from the Holy Spirit. If so, joy comes from God.
Rather than basing our thinking upon our experience, though, today, let us look at what we can find of the expressions of the character and smiles of our God in creation.
Genesis 1 opens with a great 7 word sentence, at least in the Hebrew it has just 7 words: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." I don't think we will progress much beyond this first sentence today.
II. What do we learn there about God?
A. "In the beginning, God…"
God was there before anything was created. God is eternal, infinite-He is unlimited and unbounded in every positive way. Since He was the one responsible for creating everything physical, it is clear that God transcends the physical universe. We are told elsewhere (john 4:24) that God is Spirit, as such, He is not limited or bounded by material issues or concerns. God is not subject to matter in any way. God is not made of matter -- God created matter and employs it however He desires. (points on God's infinity, on time, on matter from ichthys studies, by Dr. Robert D Luginbill, Theology: the Study of God)
B. "In the beginning," the text says. God created time at that place. He
created a beginning. Time being a creature of God's, means that God is also not limited or bounded by temporal issues or concerns like you and I are. God is not subject to time nor constrained by time. God created time and employs it any way He wishes.
C. "One verb is used of God in this sentence: "Created"
The Great American preacher Dr Shadrach Meshach Lockridge, must have smiled when he wrote of this creating God: "God came from nowhere because there was nowhere for Him to come from. And coming from nowhere, He stood on nothing because there was nowhere for Him to stand. And standing on nothing, He reached out where there was nothing to reach, caught something when there was nothing to catch, and hung something on nothing and told it to stay there." (s. Wirt Jesus, Man of Joy, p. 25, ubp)
When God created he did it "out of nothing" -- that's hard to imagine. Hebrews 11:3 confirms with other scriptures that we believe that "the entire universe was formed at God's command." That's how God creates, by "command" "Divine Fiat!"
Some scientists decided because of their abilities with science, they could make people out of dirt just like God. So they challenged God to a dual. God showed up and the scientists said, "we challenge you to a contest." And God said, "Okay, but, you'll have to get your own dirt."
Scripture points to something remarkable. There is only One Creator and that is God. That's what I found when I looked up this word in 1:1: "created."
In all the OT Scripture this word is only applied to the action of God. Only God created.
Look at it with me:
1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
After that begin the spoken work of creation: "And God said" and that God "made" and "called much forth".
1:21 God created the sea creatures
1:27 God created mankind
With those three occurrences we see the encompassing work of God's creative Genius encompassing the creation of all the physical realm (visible and invisible), the animal kingdom, and the kingdom of "men" - the spiritual creature.
In chapter 2 it is used as a word looking back at all that God had done over the 6 days in chapter 1.
Only God creates. That means, we who were made in the image of God, when we create, are mirroring our Creator in action. We never create as God does. But God has gifted people with the ability to make, to take the substances and elements around us and use them to make beauty.
D. What did God create? God certainly created beauty. It says in v 1: "the heavens and the earth." What a vast array of beauty! From the starry host, the amazing depth and breadth of the solar system to the tiny flowers, minute insects, towering giraffes, majestic eagles, magnificent mountains. We are inspired by the beauty we see, and we are prompted to create.
III. So, what does this creative action tell us about God? What of the character of God is seen in what was created? What of the imagination and joy of our creator is witnessed to?
I'm pretty simple, but you know when I think about God and creation, I bet this came forth with such joy, that the very creation was like a great joyous "shout" -- a big bang shout perhaps. But the very action was a burst of color, of beauty, of grace, of might, and must have been accompanied by such joy.
Pastor Gene Edwards wrote: "The Lord swept his hand across the horizon of nothingness. There burst forth first three, then a thousand, thousand beings of blazing light. All as one, turned and faced the One who had made them, … raising their voices in one deafening roar: Honor to him who was before all things! The Lord joined them in a mighty shout, …Joy joined praise as creation mingled delight with praise at the inauguration of its birth." (pp3-4, The Beginning, Gene Edwards)
When author CS Lewis was trying to picture this creative act, he made the word spoken a song: "The eastern sky changed from white to pink and from pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose."(The Magician's Nephew, p 90)
A song, shouts of joy, absurd? Hardly. God asks Job:
"Where were you when this took place?" "Who laid the earth's cornerstone while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7)
Wisdom, perhaps the voice of Jesus, declares in Proverbs of this season of creation: "I was there when He set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind" (Proverbs 8:27-31).
God created and in that creation there was great joy.
Don't we glimpse this as well?
Anyone out there create anything? What is it like to create?
Any chefs? Do you like taking those various disconnected ingredients and seeing the finished product come forth?
Any gifted cleaners? Do you get a thrill out of taking a mess of a kitchen or room, organizing and cleaning it? (I'll hire you!)
Anyone who loves working with wood? Gabrielle and I made a train of wood this past year - it had some lopped-sided wheels, some parts did not fit as we would have hoped, but you know, we had a wonderful time making it and my nephew for whom she made it thought it was a masterpiece!
Any quilters? Painters? Musicians? Calligraphers? Auto Mechanics? Home re-modelers? Gardeners?
Part of the design of God in us people - made in God's image-- is that we are makers. We are given dominion over creation, to "rule" and part of that rule is creating beauty. We are makers of beauty.
And when those creative juices flow - do you experience joy?
I know I do. If we have such joy, how much more the Creator, our Heavenly Father, who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light?
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