Created on Purpose, by Choice

Transcript

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[0:00] give you an introduction. Our reading is Genesis 1 through 5. That's the sermon text. And the title of this is Rescue. And it kind of came to me on my sabbatical leave. That was a time when I was resting from my labors. And inspiration, if you kind of let your brain disconnect from your everyday tasks, then these thoughts and ideas, probably from the spirit, but just maybe your brain working in a different way, they come in. And they're really productive and fertile ideas. And so one thing that came to me is, when I get back, I really want to maybe guide us through what the scriptures contain in eight short weeks. But there's a theme that kind of runs all throughout that time, all throughout the scriptures, which is this idea that God is rescuing us from all sorts of things, but mostly from sin and from ourselves. And from the brokenness of this world, because God loves us so much. And so all throughout, what we'll be seeing is in every aspect of the scriptures, and we're going to go through it sort of chronologically or through the book. All done? Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here Right here Right here Right here Next week, the fall, which is the fall of humankind, Adam and Eve falling into sin.

[1:34] Then the promised land, so that would be about people finding the land of Israel and populating it. Then the promised king, this messianic expectation of hope that kind of is in all of the Old Testament, really. Exile and return, the story of God's people losing sight of God and having to be sort of taken away to a foreign land, but then eventually returning. And that's the Old Testament. That's five chapters, five weeks on the Old Testament. And then week six is the life of Jesus. And then, unfortunately, all we have is one week for Jesus. You could spend, you know, a year. But one week on the life of Jesus and then one week on Pentecost and the church. And that happens to fall. It'll fall on Pentecost Sunday, so it'll be kind of fitting. And then we're going to end. You sort of end. You start with one book, Genesis. You end with another book, Revelation. So the final week is about the future hope. What does the future look like for God's rescuing job in the world? So who's excited? Hands up if you're excited. Hands up if you're not excited. Who's not excited? I knew it. I knew it. Okay. So there will be sort of office hours and the pastor's study afterwards. And those of you who raised your hand. And for that part, you're going to have to come in and have a big old talk.

[2:51] No, I'm just kidding. So let's go to our reading. It's nice and short. Genesis 1, 1 through 5. This is the New Living Translation. In the beginning. In the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the deep waters. And the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

[3:18] Then God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness night. And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day. Let's pray.

[3:40] Father, thank you for this word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it in Jesus' name. Amen. So I'd like to introduce you to somebody named God. This is how the Bible starts. Isn't it interesting that the Bible doesn't start some other way? Like way back in the land of Babylon. Somebody, somebody, some guy, some did something. No, it starts with in the beginning of all time, of all everything.

[4:10] The supreme master of all things, including time existed and spoke. So the Bible actually frames itself. as a book that describes the origins of the entire universe. You could say that's pretty ambitious, quite an ambitious scope, but it makes sense because it's a very ambitious book. So the Bible starts out with this introduction. Now I want to, I want you to think about this. Some of you are really literary people, some of you aren't, like I'm maybe not that literary, but I did a little research and I wanted to find all the books that maybe you have heard of where the very first sentence of the book introduces the name or the very, the character of the book, right? What are you thinking of, Pam? Exactly, that's where I started! Who else thought of Moby Dick? The very first sentence of Moby Dick is, call me Ishmael. Now if you've heard of a book called Coraline, it starts like this, Coraline, line discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house. Starts with her name. Does anyone know Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis? You do? The first sentence of that book is, Elmer Gantry was a drunk. Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, it says this, as Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic

[5:41] insect. Isn't that a great way to start a book? The name of the character and that he woke up as an insect. Okay. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut says, call me Jonah. It's kind of after Herman Melville. My parents did, or nearly did, they call me John. And then David Copperfield, there's only two more, but these are all good. Charles Dickens by David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens. He doesn't actually say his name, but it goes like this. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anyone else, these pages must show. Isn't that a great way to start a book? And the name of the chapter in chapter one of David Copperfield is I Am Born, which is kind of like, this is kind of like the Bible. The Bible's in the beginning. And finally, there's a newer book called Circe by Madeline Miller. It's a little more feminist, a little more interesting. It's basically the idea that this is Circe the Witch that you hear about in the Odyssey. But it tells the story from her point of view. And eventually she has her an affair with Odysseus and her son Telemachus. Anyways, this is the very first sentence of Circe by Madeline Miller. When I was born, the name for what I was

[6:59] did not exist. Isn't that great? When I was born the name for what I was did not exist. I guess because she was a witch. Okay, so the Bible is a book about God. Are you kind of trying to fill out the little form here? The Bible is a book about God, and it starts with God's name. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, you may be saying to yourself, the theme is rescue. So what does God rescue us from when he created the universe and everything? Don't we have to wait until next week to really talk about the rescue? But I think the answer is he does rescue us from something when he creates the universe. This is a little bit more give and take today, and if you want to raise your hand and talk about something else, you can do that too. Not something else, but something related. What does God rescue us from when he creates the universe?

[7:47] Yes, Brian. We had another one. Darkness, sin and darkness. Yes. Did we need rescuing from nothingness? That, I think, is an interesting question because we weren't perhaps aware that we were nothing. So it didn't feel good on our end because it didn't feel like anything. But God rescued us from nothingness or nonexistence or that kind of darkness that is sort of metaphorically in that first, you know, the first few verses of Genesis 1. This darkness is sort of this void and this chaos, and out of it, God creates us and everything that exists. So he rescues us from not existing, and he calls us into existence. And I want to introduce a concept to you. This is kind of important in Christian theology. It's called, in Latin, it would be creatio ex nihilo, and that means creation out of nothing. The word ex means nothing. Nihilo means nothing, like nihilism or nihilism, as some people pronounce it. And listen to Romans 4.17. This is a bit of a clue that the Apostle Paul gives us where he talks about Abraham because he's the father of the faith. He says, He says, Now, this is the important part in chapter 4, verse 17 of Romans.

[9:19] And calls into existence the things that do not yet exist. That's the nature of God. He calls things into existence that do not yet exist. And that's what he's doing in the very beginning of Genesis. He exists, how he existed, how long he existed before all this happened is not something, like I said, that I can figure out. And I don't think you can either. But if you can, come tell me. That'd be great. But we don't understand that. The thinking is that he actually created time at the same time he created matter. And if you're into quantum physics and things like that, that makes perfect sense to you, right? And if you're not, then you just have to maybe take it on the authority of some of the scientists. But.

[10:02] But Augustine, one of the founders of the faith, lived in Rome in the 300s and 400s. He talked about this. He called, he talked about creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothingness or out of nonexistence. Now, if you want to fill out your little form there, ex nihilo literally means out of nothing. But ex nihilo as a sort of, as a theological concept.

[10:32] And I have read, I wrote it down here because it's kind of hard to put it all in just one paragraph. Is that. Sorry, I lost my place then. Well, it means that God created, God created everything. Now, just listen, just listen. We'll fill it in at the end. We'll fill it in. Now, listen up to Augustine's idea of God as a creator out of nothingness. The one idea was. That. And there was, he was writing against a false doctrine at the time called Manichaeanism, which had a lot of problems with it. One of the problems with it is that Manichaeanism thought that God sort of stumbled upon a bunch of pre-existing matter that was chaotic and evil. Manichaeans also thought that matter itself was evil, which we don't believe. And that God sort of bumbled his way into kind of crafting things out of it. But, but Augustine said, no, nothing existed before God. There's nothing that pre-existed. God created everything by itself out of nothing. And that's an important thing to sort of maintains that God is the sole source of all reality. And I think that's a really important thing. So if you, if you want to put that in the next line, I think that's the great, great thing to do. If you want to say ex nihilo as a theological concept means that God is the sole source of all reality.

[11:54] God, only God can do these things. We all, Augustine also thought that God didn't just create the universe in time, but he, he created it with time. That time itself is a creation and God exists outside of time. And that's a tough one for ourselves to get our heads around. But I think it makes sense that God's time is not like our time. He exists outside of time. And so he can see the future before it happens. Although sometimes he decides not to intervene in it. And we understand that happens all the time. Now, this idea of creation out of nothing. Establish sort of a fundamental distinction then between the creator and the creature. And this is another very important thing to understand about God is that we cannot be like God and we never really can be like God. And so there are some other religions and some other sort of pseudo Christian religions that teach that you can become God yourself. We don't teach that. That is impossible for us. We are on a level of a completely different level from God and we can never attain God's level. We're very distinct from him. And so he's the creator. The simplest way to think of it is he is the creator and we are the creature. And the creature can never become the creator.

[13:08] It's impossible. So and created things are finite and but God is infinite. Right. And then I think this is really the most important part that Augustine said. I think this is useful for us is that it's also out of nothingness because God wasn't compelled by any force to create. The universe. God chose to do it. He didn't have to do it. It was an act of God's own will to create the universe. This is important. It doesn't. It sounds a little abstract, but it's really important. It was God's choice to make the universe and everything in it, including you. And that means that God had a purpose for it. That's all we keep saying sort of in sort of sort of misquoting scripture. A lot people say God has a purpose for your life. That's absolutely. Absolutely. True. That's absolutely true. God had a purpose for creating the universe and God had a purpose for creating you. And he knew you well before you were born because he lives outside of time. And the purpose for God was not because he had to, but because he's a creator. That's in his nature. He loves to create things. And he also loves his creation. And he could see forward to a day when you would exist and he could love you and be in relationship with you, which is why he wants to be with you.

[14:30] He wants to rescue you when the fall happens. Does that make sense? Isn't that great? So we kind of hear these things sort of in a sort of a longer sense, people quoting the Bible and sort of imperfect ways, not imperfect, but sort of abstract way, saying God loves you and has a wonderful purpose for your life. But that I wouldn't locate that in in other parts of the Old Testament or in the New Testament. I would locate that in Genesis one. God chose to make everything because he could. Nothing made him do it. He. It was a. It was a matter of will for him. So that would be another answer, you know, and for that line there on that on that. I didn't keep one with me. I need one. Do we have we have an extra.

[15:19] So just so you know, the Bible is a book about God and God and creation. God's existence rescues us from nonexistence or nothingness. Ex nihilo. Literally means out of nothingness. And theologically, it means that God didn't have to make the world, but he chose to. And it's it means that there's a distinction between the creator and the creation. It means a lot of things. There's not enough room to write it all down there. But if you have tiny handwriting, you could have filled that all in. OK.

[15:51] And so if God chose for us to exist, he may think about this. If it's not enough for us to go, oh, God chose. He knows for us to exist and has, you know, some knowledge of us in the future. Then does it reason that God may want us to respond to him in some way or another? And that's a very interesting question, because you could think that God just created everything and then said, oh, I love that I created it. I'll check in on it every now and then and look at it and go, oh, you know, all the gears are running and, you know, the earth is spinning. The moon's going around. It's all good. Every another come back in a thousand years and see how everything seems to be. We work except for all those nuclear weapons that they have. I don't know about that. You know, no.

[16:35] God stays completely engaged with his creation and actually requires or asks or demands something of all of his creation and particularly of the humans that he created. And that's an important. So that's going to come up many times in the next parts of this series. So kind of keep a pin in that, that God has a hope that we will respond to this creation. Right.

[17:12] Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock and the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground." So already, did you see a little bit of purpose for the humans? There's some expectations that humans will do something. Here it says reign. I think the right word is stewardship. They will steward the creation. They will take care of it. So God created human beings, very important here, one of the most important verses of the Bible, in His own image. God created human beings in His own image. So they look like Him. They seem like Him. They act like Him in some important ways, but maintaining the distinction between the Creator and the creature. So while they may look like Him, they do not, they are not entirely like Him at all. They do not have the same power as Him. They don't have the same rank in creation as He does. In the image of God he created Him. And this is such an important thing that they say it twice, Right? In this one verse, verse 27, God created human beings in His own image. image. In the image of God, He created them, just so you make sure he's got that, right?

[18:29] Male and female, He created them. Then God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and govern it, rain over the fish of the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground. So, He creates human beings and it's not just He thought to Himself, oh, I have a plan for them, I have a purpose for their existence. After He creates them, He then tells them what that is. So, there's no excuse for them not knowing what it is. Now, I want to go back to that thing I, because we're learning a little bit more about God today. This is really powerful.

[19:02] The plural pronoun, who are the we of God? And that's next on, I think that's next on your study guide there. Who are the we of God? And why, if God is sort of single and solitary up there, why doesn't God, why is God even talking to Himself, right? And who is the we, all right? And there's a few answers to this. One could be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so it could be the Trinity. But I think it's a bit more expansive than that. It's yes, it's God speaking to other aspects of who the Trinity is. And if you look at the Gospel of John, you get the sense that Jesus as the Word was with God in the beginning and was a co-creator with God. And all things that were created were created through Jesus. Very interesting. So, and the Spirit is there because the Spirit was hovering over the deep, it said there in Genesis 1. So, there's only there's a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that could be a we. But there's more, there's something called the heavenly host. And this is about God's nature too. The heavenly host is this vast array of angels, uncountable. We don't know how many, you know. And there, we don't talk about angels very much, that's okay.

[20:13] Angels are a different order of created beings. Do they have wings? Some of them do. I don't know if all of them do. I'm not sure that's the number one thing about them. But that's what I always think about when I was a kid is like these beautiful wings. But why would they be feathered wings? Because they're not birds. You know, could they be like bat wings? But that would be gross. So we go back to the bird wings because they're nice, nice, nice and white and fluffy and they fly around. But we have no idea. We have no idea. Do they need to fly? Why do they need wings to fly? If they're so powerful, they could be like Superman and just kind of, do they have a cape? I don't know. So, but it doesn't matter. They have a job. The heavenly host is up there with God. And it's so much like how you would have, say, a king or an emperor in the Middle Ages and the king would sit on a throne at the, at the, at one end of the room. There'd be no windows behind him because all you, all you should see when you see up there is just the king. And he's on a throne that's sort of higher up on a sort of a dais than everything else. And on each side is this retinue of lords and ladies who are just there sort of adoring that king and emperor.

[21:22] And then as people come in and out into the presence of the king, they have to walk past all these sort of dignitaries. And you get the sense, so then they get the sense that they're walking into the presence of somebody very powerful and very great. And the job of this, this group of people that are in slightly elevated seats on either side of the room is to, to sort of reflect the glory of the king and also sort of direct glory at the king. And so this happened in, in human kings. They're not in kingdoms. But its, its archetype is really, or its sort of, its origin is in heaven. God is sitting on a throne in heaven and there's this group of angels that are around him at all times. And this is the heavenly host. And so sometimes when God says we, he's talking to the whole room. He's saying let, you know, let us make man and our human beings in our image. Let's do this. Let's go, let's go do this thing. He's talking about the Tower of Babel. And there's a few we statements in there. Like what are we going to do about all these people building this tower? We have to do something. So the we of God, if you really want a short answer and you're filling out your thing, is the heavenly host and the Trinity. That's the we of God.

[22:32] Now this is really important though. This is not just sort of abstract. When God is described sort of in several places in the Bible, he's described with this group of angels around him. And one place is Isaiah's vision of the temple that he has. And another place is in the book of Revelation where you get the sense of God on a throne with a host of angels surrounding him. This is the heavenly host.

[23:00] And angels have one other purpose, which is they're messengers. In fact, that's what the word angel means is messenger. But when they come as messengers, they come alone or in pairs or maybe one time they come in a group of three. It's kind of hard to tell. Kind of hard to tell. We can get into that some other day. But when they come. When they come to earth as messengers, they come in a small group, one, two or three. All right.

[23:25] But when they come in a huge group of people, put your thinking hat on right now, when all the angels come or a huge group of angels come to earth, who's with them? God. God travels. It's his posse. You know, if he was a rapper, it'd be his posse. You know?

[23:49] It's his retinue. If he's going to travel, the host comes with him. And so whenever a huge host of angels comes to the earth, God is there in their midst. God is actually traveling to earth to do something. Isn't that interesting? Now, it really does happen. So I'm going to tell you three places where that happens. One is when Jacob has a dream and there's a ladder up and down to heaven and there's angels ascending. And there's angels ascending and descending on that ladder. But who shows up in Jacob's dream? God himself. And God wrestles with Jacob. God himself wrestles with Jacob. So God shows up, but not without this retinue of angels. Now last week we read from 1 Thessalonians 4 about the resurrection, that was at the end of the service, where it says, the dead are raised first and we join them to meet God in the air and all the angels will be there. So there's all the angels be sort of in this line and God will be there too. And that's where we'll meet. That's what the resurrection will look like. But now finally, and this is very interesting.

[24:56] Can anyone else tell me when the angels all, many angels appear at one time? Jesus' birth. Thank you, Pam. Outside Bethlehem, the Gospel of Luke tells us that it wasn't one, two or three angels that came to tell about the birth of Jesus. It was the whole heavenly host showed up for the shepherds. And it was so great. It was the heavenly host showed up to people who were sort of low on the ladder. The heavenly host. So what does that mean? God was there. God was actually there. He was about to be born to Mary. So God came in the flesh. And so this is who God is. God is this king that sits enthroned with a vast sort of army or host of angels around him. And so the we of God is God and the heavenly host. And that's going to, this is going to be important later on. Because part of the story of scriptures is there are times when God leaves people to their own devices because he has to, because they're being unholy or they're making a bunch of mistakes and he can't really be with them because of his holiness. But there are other times when God directly intervenes in the life of his people. And he does that either through dreams or he sends the angels as a messenger. And he, he tries to pull people back into sort of a good relationship.

[26:17] Or he tries to pull people back into a good relationship with him. So that's going to be important later on is that God can, even though God created us and doesn't, and gives us autonomy, we're his creatures, we're made in his image, which means we have autonomy ourselves. So he doesn't move us around like chess pieces, we're not little robots. But there are also points in time when he intervenes directly in human history because he wants to rescue us. And you could say that the most important intervention that he makes directly in human history is just that. when the angels came and appeared to the shepherds and Jesus was born. That is the most important and most significant intervention in human history to rescue humankind that God ever does, and that's the coming of Jesus.

[26:59] Okay, so the last thing on your sheet here is why does God create and why does God rest? And I'm going to go along with the first reading and what follows it. It says at the very end, actually the first couple of verses of chapter 2, it says God rests, I think, did I write it down here? No, that God after six days of creating on the seventh day, he says, this is very good. This is good stuff. I've really made something good. And on the seventh day, he rests. So God creates because he chooses to, because he loves us, and he has this great satisfaction in making things. Part of his nature as a creator is that the creator loves creating. Not just the thing that the creator creates, but the creator loves the act of creating things. So God creates and rests because it's in his nature and he enjoys it. He enjoys it. God rests and creates and rests because it's in his nature and he enjoys it. He enjoys creating things. This is who he was. And this is true for us too, since we're made in the image of God. And so I get great satisfaction from creation. You may have noticed that you're like, why does he have a blackboard? Why does he have a black shirt on under this blue shirt? It should be white or nothing. I'm going to take this shirt off later.

[28:21] Don't worry, it's a regular shirt underneath here. During coffee hour, I'll show you this shirt that I'm wearing underneath it. This is a shirt I made myself while I was on sabbatical. I created this shirt. How I did it is kind of interesting. I did not use AI to help me. I wrote a computer program in Python, for those of you who are interested. And it mimics sort of a 3D landscape that I used to see when I was a kid. I made a lot of landscapes that I would see on black t-shirts, mostly like stoner kids that would wear them, but I thought they were cool. So I made one, but it's a map of California in a 3D relief. And I'll show it all to you. I like how it looks. It reminds me of my youth. I made it myself. Well, I made the design and I sent it off to Uber Prince and they sent me a t-shirt a week later and I have it. And I can make a t-shirt like this of any geographical feature, any country, any state, any county.

[29:16] Any color of any shirt. And if you want one, you know, I'll make you one. It'll be fun. I'll have to charge you for it because they're like $26 each. I can't do that for everybody. Well, I don't know. Okay, I can't. I can't. I can't. But all I'm saying is I made this shirt. It didn't take that much time, but it was fun. I felt this sense of accomplishment. I felt this sense of joy. I felt my cortisol going down and my endorphins going up. This is what it's like to create. God loves creating. We love creating. We're made in the image of God. And this is, I think, the greatest sort of self-replicating feature of God. The Creator made creators.

[29:55] That's important. We are creative as people. So we listen to music that a composer has written. We read a book that somebody has written. We look at art that somebody has painted or sculpted. And we go, praise God, this is amazing. And the people who did that mostly, hopefully, accepted the fact that they were creative. Except for maybe Vincent Van Gogh. They enjoyed making the thing more than you even enjoyed looking at it.

[30:21] So, I want to ask, just real quick, a little satisfaction question here. What do you make? What do you create that satisfies you? I know there's more than just shirt makers out here. Anyone. And it could be sewing. It could be art. It could be writing. Let's get three people to respond.

[30:42] What do you make that gives you great joy? What creative work do you do? Yeah, Zach. Yeah, absolutely. It's a system. It's a thing. Yeah. Your work and your blood and sweat goes into it. Yeah, Steve. Yeah. And that actually helps other people, right? Not that your business doesn't. It will, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, Barbara.

[31:12] What do you make? A husband and beautiful daughter. Yes. I mean, if you're a parent, I tell my kids that the greatest thing that, I'm not sure they believe me, but the greatest thing that ever happened to me was having children. Changed me in ways that I never expected. And it turned me from a somewhat selfish person into a much less selfish person. But I'm still selfish. Don't worry. I'm still selfish. But it changes you. And only in a good way. But yeah, I guess, you know, the most beautiful, if you're a parent, the most beautiful and significant thing you've ever created is your own child. There's no two ways about that. Anyone else? There's time for more. Who's creating out there?

[31:55] Oh, yeah. I make teddy bears. You make teddy bears? I didn't know that. That's really cool. What do you do with them? I give them away. You give them away. I've never gotten one. Now I'm gonna get one. No, I don't need one. I've got other stuffed animals, I guess. I don't know. Well, thank you. One more. One more. Who else creates? This is fun.

[32:21] We need to have an art show here at the church someday. Or a show and tell day. All right. Yes, Brian. Marilyn and others create objects of yarn. Yeah. Bread. Yeah. Trees. Yeah. That's satisfying, isn't it? And useful. Right? Remember macrame from the 70s?

[32:47] It's like, let's create more ugly, useless things. Yay! Sorry. If you love macrame, I apologize. But looking back on it, I was like, why did... You get the kids to do it because it's fairly easy, but it's, you know, it's basically garbage. Sorry. Sorry. Strong opinion coming in. Sorry if you like macrame. No, it's beautiful.

[33:08] It's fine. Okay. Where am I? Where am I? All right. So we've answered everything in our sheet. And, um... Yeah. But why do we need to rest? God rests, so why do we need to rest? Does God really need to rest?

[33:24] Does he rest just as an example for us? Or does he actually need to rest? I imagine creating the universe was a big energy expense for him. So I could see it both ways. One, he needed to rest. Or on the other side, he didn't really need to rest, but he needed to model rest for us because we're not as powerful as him. So he rests and I need to rest. And like my sabbatical or like you, if you take a day off, that gives the next day... So if you're making something, take a day off. You'll be amazed at how much more energy and enthusiasm and inspiration you have on the day you get back to it after a day off. That's huge. It's just how we're built. That's how God... We're built in the image of God, we take rest because God tells us to take rest. And maybe it's one of the most important of the Ten Commandments and one of the most neglected ones of them all, right? Is having a day of rest, a day to be holy or set aside. So...

[34:22] There's one more task, okay? And this was in the first reading. Humans are... We have a job. We're supposed to respond to God and his creative work in one way. Humans are to care for and steward the creation well. We're supposed to take care of this world. We're not supposed to ruin it. Okay, that's clear to anyone. I don't think anybody would ever disagree with that. That if you ruin the world, you are not only ruining your own home, but you're actually violating really the first commandment of God, which is to take care of this world. So we should all be environmentalists on some level. I'm not talking about being a crazy environmentalist that throws blood on things and, you know, or stands in the middle of a freeway or burns down a refinery.

[35:08] We should love the earth because God loves it and God made it and it's his creation and it reflects his glory. And our response to him is to follow his first command to us, which is to steward the creation and take care of it. And what that looks like is a bit what it looks like what God does at the very beginning. He created order out of chaos. He created light out of darkness. And so, think of it this way. If you have a yard full of weeds and you turn that into a pleasing garden, right? That's order out of chaos, right? And it's beautiful. Not that weeds aren't beautiful, if you like weeds, but taking a weedy garden, weeding yard and turning it into this beautiful garden, that has value. Things, beautiful things have value in and of themselves, I think. Or, taking a stack of lumber and making it into a table so that your family can sit around it and have a meal with friends and neighbors. So then you're taking something that's somewhat disordered and you're making something that's ordered out of it, but it has a purpose. A purpose for community, a purpose for life together, right?

[36:14] So creation can be for its own sake, like the garden for fun or for beauty, but creation can also have a purpose. To create a space for human thriving, and that's really important too. And also, creation glorifies God. And it deepens relationships with God.

[36:33] And we don't, if you know about J.S. Bach, there's a great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, at the end of every one of his scores, he wrote three letters, S-D-G. And I've tried to put these letters here and there throughout my office and my life. And that stands for Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be the glory. So after every creation, and you can argue that Bach's creations are in the top five or ten of all composers' creations easily. This person who was at the top of that said, this is written not for my glory. This beautiful thing I created is a reflection of the God that I'm trying to give glory to. So our creative work needs to also sort of mirror that we are glorifying God, we're doing it for his glory. But, or to deepen relationships with people around us, or, and this is the important part, to work with God in his plan to rescue the world. So our creative work could have something to do with what God wants to do to rescue the world from sin. Okay? So that's going to come in important in the next seven weeks after this week. So next week we're going to look at this sort of pivotal event in human history, which is the fall, Adam and Eve fall. And we'll see right away that God will form, like instantly, God formulates a plan to rescue

[37:58] us from ourselves, and from sin, death, and the devil. So that's the end for today. We have seven more weeks to understand what the Bible is about. It's seen through the lens of it being about God, and about his plan to rescue the world. Let's pray.

[38:14] Lord, thank you for this start to this sermon series, and thank you for your word that you've given us. Thank you that we are creators made by the Creator. Lord, turn our creative energies towards things that glorify you and help our neighbors, and help us to cooperate with you in your plan to rescue this entire world. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen!