"The Creation of the World: Five Amazing Truths" (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

“The Creation of the World: Five Amazing Truths”

The creation of the world is described in 34 verses (Gen. 1:1-2:3) and approximately 900 words, fewer words than the Declaration of Independence (1,458 words). One reason for such a brief outline of creation is that people in ancient times depended on the oral transmission of information. Each generation passed on to the next generation by retelling their stories. Here in Genesis 1 is our story and it is what God wants us to know, about Him, our world, and ourselves.

Here are five amazing truths from the story of the creation of the world.

1. Before anything else existed, there was God

“In the beginning God” (1:1). When is the beginning? Go back as far as you can imagine, put your finger on that, God was before that. God doesn’t have a birth date! “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2). God is both infinite and eternal. To say He is infinite is to say that He is unlimited, measureless, boundless. To say God is eternal is to say that He has no beginning and no end, He is Lord over time, He has no past, no future, God is unchanging throughout all time. He has always been what He has always been and will always be.

2. God has created all that exists

“God created the heavens and the earth” (1:1). The word for “created” is the word (“bara”) that is only used of God creating. What is unique about the creation story is that God did not use pre-existing materials, He created “out of nothing” (“creation ex-nihilo”). The writer of Hebrews explains it like this. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Heb. 11:3).

God created by the power of His Word. Repeatedly in Genesis 1, it is God who speaks and it is so (cf. 1:6-7, 9, 11, 14-15, 24). Isaiah’s poetic testimony about God as the creator of all things is moving. “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power not one is missing” (Isa. 40:26). In Isaiah’s time there would have been about 5,000 stars visible at night. Astronomers today estimate that there are more than 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and that there are 125 billion galaxies in the universe. And the God who created each of them calls them by name.

3. What God has created is good

In every act of creation what God creates He calls good (cf. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). Creation is good because a good and gracious God created it. We need a biblical worldview that affirms the goodness of God’s world and the proper way to enjoy it. If the world seems evil, it only appears that way at times because sinful people have corrupted what God called “good.”

God created a good world that is to be enjoyed but not worshiped. We can only enjoy God’s good world when we set God’s creation in the proper order. Worshiping God’s creation by making idols of sex, pleasure, other people, material stuff, etc. will never satisfy. Only when we are properly related to our creator and redeemer can we truly enjoy God’s good creation.

4. People are the crowning achievement of God’s creation

All people are made in the image of God (1:26-27)! All people are created as spiritual beings, capable of relating to God, all people possess a moral nature. All people are made in the image of God! Grasping that truth alone would eliminate racism, it would give us a profound respect for the sanctity of all human life, born and unborn, and would end strife, bring peace and godliness, and change our world!

5. Human beings have been given the stewardship of God’s good creation

All that God did in creation, he did for you (cf. 1:29, 30). The Father created a good world for us to enjoy, there is just one stipulation, we are caretakers, stewards (managers) of God’s good creation. The first command in the Bible is found in 1:28. We show gratitude to God our creator by caring for what he’s given us in a way that brings honor to God.

How are you managing God’s creation? Closer to home, how are you doing in your corner of the universe? Even believers have to resist indifference and the desire for self-interest. We have to care about God’s creation, it’s a part of who we are. Knowing these amazing truths about creation, let’s seek to live in the light of them, teaching them to our children and grandchildren, and let’s show people in our world who are filling themselves with empty idols and building their lives on false hopes the better way, God’s way, the way of life!

Amazed By God’s Good Creation!

Pastor Joe

"The Woman Who Changed the World"

“The Woman Who Changed the World”

Dr. Joe Alain

Scripture Reading: Acts 16:6-15

Have you ever found yourself struggling as to what direction God wanted you to go? You’re not sure which path to take, or the path that you feel is the right path seems hard and the doors are closing? This is kind of where we find Paul and the other believers in Acts 16:6-15. They are sure that they are going in the right direction, that they have taken the right path, but it’s been hard, the doors seem closed at every turn. But then God gives them a vision, He redirects their path and when they follow the Lord’s plan they discover God’s incredible blessings and peace. They come to realize that they are right where God wants them to be.

How we respond to God is very important as to the outcome we experience. Our decisions matter. In this story we see that Paul’s response of obedience and others brought the Gospel to Europe. Lydia’s response of obedience brought salvation to her and her household. Your response to God’s will has life-altering implications too – for you and others in your family and beyond.

The missionary journeys of Paul reveal an amazing combination of strategic planning and sensitivity to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in working out the details of the main goals. Paul has the big goal in view, that of the Great Commission. And he has a plan for spreading the Gospel, but the details of the plan are subject to God’s direction through the Holy Spirit. At first, Paul was planning to go towards the important coastal city and capital of the Roman province of Asia, Ephesus. But he was “kept by the Holy Spirit” (v.6). So, instead Paul and his companions travelled throughout the area of Phrygia and Galatia. We are told that the Holy Spirit kept them from “preaching the Word in the province of Asia.” How the Spirit closed this door we are not told. Did they face opposition? Did they sense that the people were just not ready to respond? We just don’t know. But what we do see in this passage beyond the closed doors is the sensitivity and obedience of the disciples to follow the leading of the “Holy Spirit.”

Since God the Holy Spirit prohibited Paul and the others from going into Asia (Bythinia), they instead traveled to Troas where Paul had a vision during the night of a man from Macedonia “standing and begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us’” (vv.9-10). While Paul wanted to go to Asia, God wanted him to go to Europe. Sometimes what we want to do is not what God wants us to do. And what we don’t want to do, is precisely what God wants us to do. So how do we know where God wants us to go? How do we know what He wants us to do? One way we can tell is by asking the questions, “Where is the need? Where is God at work? Who is ‘begging’ us to come?” Sometimes we may miss the obvious.

Paul and his partners in ministry were convinced that they should go to Macedonia so they got “ready at once” (v.10). With this step of obedience and faith, Paul and his partners in the Gospel were changing the world. Now, the Gospel will go to Europe. The fact that they “concluded” that God was calling them to preach the Gospel in Macedonia shows that Paul shared the vision with the others and they decided “together” what the will of God was. However, it’s important to see that they are not “deciding” whether they are going to serve and do ministry, that’s already been decided. What they are deciding is the direction of their ministry, where is God leading them, and where there is a need there is often our direction.

When Paul and the others came to Philippi they went to the riverside where some women had met for prayer (vv.13-15). Paul’s usual “MO” was to go to a local synagogue but apparently there were not even ten Jewish male head of households in Philippi who could be in regular attendance, the requirement for a Synagogue. Paul and the others must have thought, “Lord, and why are we here?” They would soon find out for down by the riverside Paul would have an opportunity to speak the Gospel to the women who had met for worship (v.13).

Luke gives us some specific details about one of the women at the river that day, Lydia (vv.14-15). She was from “the city of Thyatira,” a city of western Asia Minor and her name was Lydia or perhaps “the Lydian Lady” as she has been called. She apparently assumed the name of her native country as we might call a woman born in Georgia, “Georgia.” We are also told that Lydia was “a dealer in purple cloth.” Thyatira was famous for making purple dyes and for dyeing clothes. Lydia was apparently a traveling businesswoman who sold luxurious purple-dyed cloth for a living.

And Luke tells us about her faith, she had been attracted to Judaism and “was a worshiper of God.” We can guess that she was either unmarried or a widow and that some of the women that gathered for worship were relatives living in her home. Lydia was “listening” to the disciples and “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” (v.14). If there would have only been one person to trust Christ in Philippi, it would have been a worth the arduous trip. But the one would become many. Lydia “and the members of her household were baptized” (v.15). Here was an instance of household evangelism.

Something beautiful and God-sized is taking place here. Paul and others are listening to the Holy Spirit, they take the Gospel to Philippi where there are people who are “sitting on ready” to respond and entire households are being changed by the power of the Gospel. Now, Paul is beginning to see why he is in Philippi and not Bythinia. Sometimes the right choice is not the one that looks right on paper, it’s sometimes the less appealing choice. From these small beginnings along the river bank, the church at Philippi began. Apparently, Lydia was a woman of some means and it seems her home became the center for Christian outreach and worship in Philippi (cf. 16:40). From this quiet spot 800 miles from Rome the Gospel would spread westward throughout all Europe and eventually America. You could say that Lydia was “The Woman that Changed the World!” Our decisions do matter. What will be the impact of your response of obedience and faith? As Paul and others like Lydia responded to God’s will, your decision to respond just may change your world!

Dr. Joe Alain

Denham Springs, Louisiana

May 11, 2015

"Living Water" (A Dramatic First-Person Monologue)

“Living Water”

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10, NIV

A dramatic first-person monologue based on John 4:1-42 from the perspective of the woman at the well.

Shock, surprise, speechless, I was caught off guard by the question from the stranger, “Will you give me a drink?” (v.7). I didn’t expect to find anyone at the well at this hour, at least I was hoping no one would be there. I usually come around noon to draw water to avoid the crowds of other women from town. You know how some people can talk and gossip and stare. I think I’ll scream at the next person who looks at me in that shameful way. Don’t they know I already feel bad enough? Don’t they know that I’ve tried to make my marriages work? That I’m trying to get my life together? Are they so perfect that they have never messed up and made mistakes in life?

The stranger did not appear to be one of us, a Samaritan. You know you can spot those Galileans a mile away. His request was simple and harmless enough. It was noon and it was hot and he did look pretty weary. After I got over the surprise of his question, I reminded him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (v.9). The Jews do not associate with us Samaritans.

It’s hard for me to remember why that is so but it is and I’ve heard it all my life.  I’ve been taught that our “family feud” started a long time before I was born. Following the conquest of this land that I’m standing on now by Assyria in 722 B.C., many of my people were deported, others resettled, and many foreigners moved into these parts with strange ways and customs. It wasn’t long before there were intermarriages between us and those who had come from distant lands to settle. The Jewish people despised us, they saw us as selling out, but what could we do? What would you have done? This hostility reached a breaking point when our people erected a temple on Mount Gerizim. We had crossed the line as far as the Jews were considered. They would not have anything to do with us. We were considered “unclean,” “apostates,” just short of being considered complete Gentiles (pagans).

This stranger at the well of our ancestors responded in an odd way for he said that I should be the one asking him for a drink because he had what he called the gift of “living water” (v.10). Of course, if he had such water why was he asking me for drink? It didn’t make any sense to me. I somewhat jokingly said to him that he had nothing to draw water with and that the well was pretty deep (v.11). How in the world was he going to get me some water? Was he “greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well?” (v.12).

Looking at me and then at the well, the man told me that “everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water” that I give to him “will never thirst” (v.14). Naturally, I did ask him for this water. Show it to me, give me to drink “this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (v.15). What I wouldn’t give to not have to come back to this well again! Please, give me some!

I was expecting him to begin drawing water although I had no clue how he would do that since he seemed totally unprepared to draw water. But instead of giving me water, it seemed as if he began to give me a lecture. “Go, call your husband and come back” (v.16). Why would he tell me to do that? I told him that I didn’t have a husband, which was partly true. I thought that would be the end of the conversation but he delved deeper into my life and told me things that were true that I had wished were not. Sometimes you’re just not ready to open up old wounds and the truth is too much to take.

This man seemed to know all about me. Somehow he knew that I had previously had five husbands and the man that I was living with was not my husband (v.18). How could he know this? Had he been talking to my neighbors? Had he been snooping around and hearing the stories about me when the other women came to the well? Who was this man?

He was different than all the others. He didn’t say what he was saying in a hurtful or mocking way as I was only too accustomed to hearing. He was not making fun of me or looking down on me as the others in town did. There was something different about this man. He seemed to know all about me and yet he was loving me anyway. I never knew this kind of unconditional love before and it made me anxious and a little uncomfortable. I couldn’t afford to let anyone in my life, it was too painful, I was tired of being hurt. And because of that I was pretty good at protecting my heart, withholding my feelings, of not letting myself get to close. I had been hurt plenty of times and I was determined not to be hurt again, so I looked for a way to change the conversation.

I told this man that he sure seemed like a prophet since only a prophet could know these things about me. I had my opening. I would get this conversation off of me and onto something else as quick as possible. What better distraction then to bring up a question about worship (v.20). My people had a long tradition of worshiping on Mr. Gerizim although I can’t say I was very regular myself. And I knew that the Jewish people believed that true worship could only occur in Jerusalem, Mount Zion. So I had the perfect distraction, who was right? Us? or them?

This man became even more mysterious to me by the moment because of the way that he responded to my question. He answered me in one sense when he said that God’s “salvation” came through the Jewish people (v.22), but then he quickly added that there was coming a time and that it already was here, “when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (v.23a). “God is spirit,” he said and “his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (v.24). I had never heard such words before. Worship was not so much about a place as it was a person! He was saying that it was possible for anyone (for me) to be a true worshiper (truly forgiven) – not by virtue of where one worships (Gerizim or Jerusalem) but by virtue of how one worships (“in spirit and truth”).

I did believe that the Messiah, the Christ was coming some day and when that happened, he would explain everything. But Jesus said that the Messiah had already come and that I was looking at him (v.26)! It dawned on me that this man might be more than just a man. I recognized him as a “Jew,” “a prophet,” could he also be the Messiah? In my excitement I left so quickly that I forgot my water jar and “went back to the people” (v.27) and said, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (v.29).

Though my words were feeble and my understanding even more so, many in town came out to see this man who I came to know was named Jesus. They believed in him as I was now beginning to do, that this man Jesus was more than just a man, he was the Messiah, the Christ, “the Savior of the world” (v.42). We urged him to stay with us in our area and he did for several days. And many of my friends and neighbors believed in him “because of his words” (v.41).

I learned much that day I met Jesus, when he changed me forever, when he gave me the gift of living water. I’ll never forget the day I drank deeply from the well of grace. I learned that God is no respecter of persons. I learned that God in Christ had come to break down the barriers that separate us from one another. No longer are their males and females, slaves and free, Jews and Samaritans, for we are all sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:26-28).

I also learned that God knows all about us and he loves us anyway. I learned that God is a God of grace and mercy. I learned that what is important is not your past, your past failures, sins, wrong turns, but where you’re heading, where your path is leading. And I learned that true worship is centered in a person and not a place. I discovered that worship is about the attitude of the heart, God must be worshiped “in spirit and truth [reality].”

The Messiah has come. Living water is here, and only Jesus satisfies. While the world’s wells offer temporary refreshment, they prove to be shallow and unfulfilling, but God’s well of salvation never runs dry, it’s deep and satisfying and it’s for all people even people like me. So come, drink, and be satisfied! Here the words of Jesus, the words of the grace of God, and believe in Him. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink [and now you know “who”], you would have asked him and he would [and he will] have given you living water” (v.10).

Joe Alain, February, 2015

When God Ran

“When God Ran”

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

Luke chapter 15 consists of three parables (or stories) with one central thought, that of God’s redeeming love. In each of the stories something is lost and then found, followed by rejoicing over finding that which was lost. By way of these simple stories, Jesus is encouraging his followers to be like God the Father, to be redemptive in our relationships. God is patient with us, He seeks to restore us, to change us for the better, and He is “always” redemptive towards us. And we’re glad that God is like that. “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities” (Ps. 103:10). In other words, God doesn’t give you what you deserve, He gives you what you don’t deserve, grace!

What would move a man to leave his 99 sheep in search of the one that was lost? What would cause a woman to sweep her home clean, to get down on the floor to find that one coin that fell off the dresser? What would cause a man who had been mistreated by his son, disrespected by him, done wrong by him, what would cause him to now to run and embrace his now returning wayward son? What keeps God running and redeeming is his children! He redeems because He loves, that is his nature (Jn. 3:16). That is why we seek to carry out His mission in our lives, and in the life of the church.

If we are going to reach our community with the Gospel, we must be a welcoming place of grace where people can get close to God and connect with others. Will people be welcomed at HBC? That largely depends on the answer to the question, are you welcoming? Are you redemptive in how you deal with other people? Are you non-judgmental, kind, merciful, and patient?

If we struggle with being patient with people, with showing mercy and compassion, if we would rather be right than love, if we like things the way they are, we need only to get close to our heavenly Father who deals with us redemptively and changes us to do likewise. When you get close to God, His character rubs off on you. You can no longer be content with a narrow vision of God’s love. You can no longer be satisfied knowing that you’re ok (with the 99) but that there are others who are the “one” who are lost. God doesn’t throw a party for high attendance day, the “99,” he throws a party when the “one” person who was lost is found. And as long as there is the “one,” God will continue to run.

We were made aware this past week of an amazing story of perseverance and determination. Former NFL fullback, Ron Konrad survived a 16 hour ordeal in the Gulf of Mexico swimming 27 miles to safety after falling off his 31’ boat while fishing alone nine miles off the coast of Florida. He had caught a large fish and was tending to the rod when a wave hit the boat and knocked him in the water. His boat was on autopilot and headed east. There were no other boats in sight and he was not wearing a life preserver.

Twice he was nearly rescued. A recreational fishing boat approached within 50 yards, but Konrad couldn’t flag it down. Then a Coast Guard helicopter searching for him flew overhead. Konrad said, “They had the lights on me and kept going. They didn’t see me. That was a difficult time.” But the ex-Miami Dolphin kept swimming, thinking of his daughters, ages 8 and 10. He said, “I had to get to shore.” His boat was found near Grand Bahama Island on Deadman’s Reef, the irony of the name not lost on Konrad. He had gone the other way.

It could be said of humanity (of us), that we are dead in the water, we’ve fallen off the boat without a life preserver and without help, without hope, and no chance of rescue in sight, and it’s us who are headed towards Deadman’s Reef. But unlike the story where Konrad who through sheer determination made it to shore, God in Christ has determined to get to us. And what keeps God running and redeeming is his children who are lost and who need to be found. This is the heart of God. This is to be our heart for our community, for our world. People are hurting and in need of God’s redeeming love all around us. Let’s determine to follow our Father who continues to run to redeem and will continue to do so as long as there is the “one.”

Pastor Joe

“I thank my God every time I remember you.” Philippians 1:3