Our corporate worship service on Sunday, Feb 16 has been cancelled due to the Winter storm.

See you Thursday for prayer meeting!

God Creates the Universe and Rests

June 2, 2024 Preacher: John Bell Series: Genesis

Passage: Genesis 1:1– 2:3

1:1–2:3 describes God as the creator of the cosmos. Its themes focus on God’s sovereignty as Lord over all: the importance of Sabbath rest, humanity’s rulership over creation, and the creation of abundant life.

2:4–25 emphasizes different themes: the creation of man, his home, his partner/helper, and his work. At the beginning of all, God is both the transcendent Creator who is sovereign overall and the imminent Lord providing a world in full harmony with himself and the people he has created.

Some Biblical “Non-Negotiables” About God

  • God simply is.
  • God made everything that is non-God.
  • God is a talking God who interacts with his creation
  • Everything God makes is good—very good.

“Rest” Big Picture:  If we enter into “God’s rest” (Ps. 95; Hebrews 4) it will be by following the ultimate primordial paradigm of God himself, established in Genesis 2:2-3: we cease from our works. Human beings are justified – that is, we are declared to be in right standing before God’s judgment bar with all our sin forgiven – by faith alone, in Jesus alone, without any mixture of our own works.

Simplified Biblical Timeline

  • The “faithless generation” of Israelites are delivered from Egypt, but die in the wilderness over a span of 40 years (circa 1540 - 1501 BC).
  • Israel enters into the “Promised Land Rest” under Joshua, circa 1500 BC.
  • 500 years later, the psalmist writes Psalm 95, circa 1000 BC.
  • Hebrews is written sometime before AD 70, around 1100 years after Psalm 95.

 

*This sermon owes much to D.A. Carson’s “The God Who Is There” and “Creation” by Andrew M Davis.

More in Genesis

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Journey's End

January 19, 2025

Walking With A Limp

January 12, 2025

Jacob's Wives, His Children, His Flocks... and Uncle Laban