Genesis: In the Beginning

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1 NIV)

There are two stories going on in this world. One is the Upper Story of what God is doing, and the other is the Lower Story of my life. Here is one of the most important truths one can come to grips with: the only way to make sense of the Lower Story is to see where it fits in with the Upper Story. The only way to find purpose and peace in my life is to place my life squarely in the hands of Jesus Christ, inviting God to make the Lower Story of my living fit in - even if unevenly and imperfectly - with the Upper Story of His great plan to redeem creation (including me).

It all starts with God. In the beginning, God... He is the principle character in the Story, not me - and not you. In the Upper Story, God created the Lower Story. Existence itself comes from Him. As a matter of fact, the New Testament claims, "...and in Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:28 NIV) If God were to withdraw His life-giving sustenance from the Universe, it would cease to exist - and so would we.

God created the heavens and the earth, the sun, moon and stars, the atmosphere and the oceans, the plants and animals. And the crown of His creation, according to Genesis, is us.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:26-28 NIV)

God created us to be like Himself. He created us to be with us. He came down to be with Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden. We are not accidents. In love, God created human beings in His own image to have a relationship with Him. This is the beginning of it all. God made us in love. He loves us whether we return that love or not. And that's the tragic, but realistic, fact of life we must all come to grips with. We don't love Him back, we love ourselves.

You see God created us in His own image with the capacity and freedom to choose. We can choose to love Him or to love ourselves. We can choose to obey Him or disobey Him. Adam and Eve chose to disobey their Creator, and sin entered the world. And every one of us has inherited the sin nature they passed on to their children and grandchildren.

This sin nature expressed itself immediately when Cain, filled with jealousy, murdered his brother, Abel, after God accepted Abel's sacrifice, but rejected Cain's. The selfishness and wickedness grew until God regretted He made us and decided to start over with the one righteous man on earth, Noah. And so God flooded the earth and everyone died except Noah, his sons and their wives, and breeding pairs of every kind of animal on the ark.

The problem, of course, is that Noah and his family still had the sin nature in them. Even still, God made a promise to Noah that He is still keeping.

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. (Genesis 8:20-21 NIV)

The Upper Story is the story of God keeping His promise not to destroy us, but to redeem us. When we see the Bible as one, grand story of God's love for and redemption of His creation, we see how it all points to the redemption found in His Son, Jesus Christ. The covenants with Noah and Abraham and Moses and King David all point to Jesus. And the new covenant in Jesus Christ actually redeems us from sin and death.

Over the next 31 weeks, our church will work our way through this grand story of redemption - literally the greatest story ever told. And in doing so, we will have the opportunity to fit the Lower Story of our lives into the grand Upper Story of God's redemption. Next week, we will see God raising up a nation through an elderly couple - Abram and Sarai. From that nation will come a Savior. God was at work, and He still is! To God be the glory!