Worship

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Indescirible
All things NEW
Creating the Universe

The God Who is There: Part 1. The God Who Made

Everything
D. A. Carson

SESSION 1

IN THE BEGINNING, GOD. . .

Session objective
Our journey into Gods story revealed in Scripture

starts with the opening pages of the Book of

Genesis.
In those pages, we not only see that everything
finds its source of origin in the God of the Bible, but
also that our own story begins here as well.
The creation account invites us to look back to
historical events and recognize that these truths
tell us who we are and how we are to live in the
present age.
We not only learn about God, but we learn
something about ourselves as well.

gospelproject.com
How have we learned about the Bibles bigger
story from what you have learned up to this point.

The In the beginning, God

Point created everything, and He
created everything good.

Scripture
Genesis 1:1-25; 1 Corinthians 8:5-6
1 In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. 2 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.
3 And God said, Let there be light, and
there was light. 4 God saw that the light was
good, and he separated the light from the
darkness. 5 God called the light day, and
the darkness he called night. And there
was evening, and there was morningthe
first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a
vault between the waters to separate water
from water. 7 So God made the vault and
separated the water under the vault from
the water above it. And it was so. 8 God
called the vault sky. And there was
evening, and there was morningthe
second day.

9 And

God said, Let the water under the sky be

gathered to one place, and let dry
ground appear. And it was so. 10 God
called the dry ground land, and the gathered
waters he called seas. And God saw that it
was good.
11 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. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants
bearing seed according to their kinds and
trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to
their kinds. And God saw that it was
good. 13 And there was evening, and there was
morningthe third day.

The Beginning Gen 1:14-25

14 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, 15 and let
them be lights in the vault of the sky to give
light on the earth. And it was so. 16 God made
two great lightsthe greater light to govern the
day and the lesser light to govern the night. He
also made the stars. 17 God set them in the
vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to
govern the day and the night, and to separate
light from darkness. And God saw that it was
good. 19 And there was evening, and there was
morningthe fourth day.
20 And

God said, Let the water teem with living

creatures, and let birds fly above the earth
across the vault of the sky. 21 So God
created the great creatures of the sea and
every living thing with which the water teems
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.

22 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. 23 And there was
evening, and there was morningthe
fifth day.
24 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. 25 God made the wild
animals according to their kinds, the
livestock according to their kinds, and
all the creatures that move along the
ground according to their kinds. And
God saw that it was good.

GOD CREATED EVERYTHING

The whole point of Genesis 1:1. is the God

who simply preceded everything and is not

dependent on anythingcreated all.

In the beginning, God created the heavens

and the earth. The earth was without form

and void, and darkness was over the face of
the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering
over the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:1-2)

Questions about the Bible

Evangelism
Content of the Bible
This study combines both and adds some of

the thinking that is behind common

questions and debates about the Bible
today.
This first study addresses the fact that the
original audience of the Bible had many
different issues and questions than those do
today.

The audience of the Bible similar or

not?
Ancient Israelites on their way to the

promised land (a story for a later time).

Their interests lie in more concrete issues
than our rationalist mindset - the age of the
earth or the science behind the creation.
that really didnt matter to this small group
of nomads.

The audience of the Bible similar or

not?
1 Corinthians 8:5-6

5 For

even if there are so-called

gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as
indeed there are many gods and many
lords), 6 yet for us there is but one God, the
Father, from whom all things came and for
whom we live; and there is but one
Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things
came and through whom we live.

The audiences questions

The Israelites would have wrestled with
questions such as
Is our God the real God?
Is He the best God?
Is He the most powerful God?
Having lived so long among the gods of the
Egyptians and those of foreign nations, the
Israelites struggled to believe that their God
was the God.

Continued . . .
To remedy such wandering hearts, Genesis 1:1

answers their questions and helps them to

understand that the God of their bedtime stories
the God of their fatherswas the very same God
who created the world.
The God of Israel, not the gods of the Canaanites or
the Philistines, was the Creator of everything. For
great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to
be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but
the LORD made the heavens. (Ps. 96:4-5).

Do we ask questions that are similar

to the Israelites?
Do we ask . . .
Is God real?

Does He love me?

Is He worth it?

His Story
Summary

Characters

Plot

God is good.

The Triune God: Father,

Son, and Holy Spirit

Creation is as far as we go
here. God is the source
and origin of all life.

SESSION 1- video

IN THE BEGINNING, GOD. . .

Going further
This opening verse of the Bible, seven words in the
Hebrew, establishes seven key truths upon which the
rest of the Bible is based.

First, God exists. The essential first step in pleasing

God is recognizing His existence (Heb. 11:6).
Second, God existed before there was a universe and
will exist after the universe perishes (Heb. 1:10-12).
Third, God is the main character in the Bible. He is the
subject of the first verb in the Bible (in fact, He is the
subject of more verbs than any other character) and
performs a wider variety of activities than any other
being in the Bible.

Going . . .
Fourth, as Creator, God has done what no human being
could ever do; in its active form the Hebrew verb bara,
meaning to create, never has a human subject. Thus
bara signifies a work that is uniquely Gods.
Fifth, God is mysterious; though the Hebrew word for
God is plural, the verb form of which God is the subject
is singular. This is perhaps a subtle allusion to Gods
Trinitarian nature: He is three divine persons in one
divine essence.
Sixth, God is the Creator of heaven and earth. He
doesnt just modify pre-existing matter but calls matter
into being out of nothing (Ps. 33:6,9; Heb. 11:3).
Seventh, God is not dependent on the universe, but the
universe is totally dependent on God (Heb. 1:3).1

I links
http://www.guidescope.net/clusters/47tuc.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDx14fSCWIg

http://www.astrophysics.manchester.ac.uk/resea

rch/pulsar/Education/Sounds/0835.mp3

Intro Video gospelproject.com

Related blogs: http://rzim.org/a-slice-ofinfinity/light-of-the-world/