God is Love: Creation

This Sunday we start a seven week series on the Old Testament.

A few people asked me why I wanted to do this preaching series.

I wanted to do it because people at Bible study asked me to.

Often times at Bible study I think that people have  the wrong idea about the Old Testament.

Usually someone will say something like, "Well that is the god of the Old Testament, and Jesus is different."

I can understand why people think this.

First, it comes from believing that Christianity is superior to Judaism, instead of understanding that Christianity is a continuation of Judaism.

That what Christians think about God is what our Jewish siblings think about God.

We share the same scripture because Jesus was Jewish.

A careful reading of the New Testament shows that Jesus really was trying to remind people of what God's original intent was, and not start some new religion.

That Jesus taught was the way that God wanted people to be.

A close reading of the Old Testament shows that what Jesus taught was not new, it was how God has been since the start of time.

Second, it comes from the belief that in the Old Testament God was meaner, and Jesus was nice?

That the god of the Old Testament loved to rain down fire, or drown those who broke the law.

This is wrong on two accounts.

First of all Jesus was just as harsh on those who were hypocritical.

Jesus stood in the tradition of other prophets who came to call God's people to repentance.

And Jesus could be just as harsh on people.

Second, the God we meet in the Old Testament offers just as much grace and forgiveness as Jesus.

Over and over God forgives the sins of his people, and tries again.

So this whole preaching series is an attempt on my part to say something that the Church has held true since the beginning.

We have one God.

We see that God in the Holy text of what we call the Bible.

The same God who we meet in the Old Testament, is the same God we know in Jesus Christ.

This is why we start with creation.

We will not talk this morning about whether the story of creation in Genesis is literal or a myth.

That is another topic for another day.

Instead, I simply want us to see what does the creation story tell us about God?

What does it say about God's character?

What does it tell us about the world that we live in?

We will start with what it says about the world we live in.

There is order to it.

The story we know in Genesis one is an orderly story.

God creates the world in order.

First there is light and darkness.

Then there are stars and suns.

Then water, and land.

Then creatures to inhabit them.

Then us.

Out of chaos God creates order.

This means that in the world there is order.

There is purpose in everything.

There is a reason mosquitoes exists.

There is a reason the platypus looks the way it does.

There is a reason why you and I are here this morning!

God created a world that has order and purpose and meaning.

The second thing about our world is that it is good.

"And God saw that is was good".

I can lose sight of this at times.

But the world is good.

It is full of life.

It is full of change, mystery, majesty, wonder, and holy things.

God made everything and blessed it.

On the fourth of July I was at my in-laws house floating on the lake by their house.

It was a beautiful day.

And as I floated I thought to myself God is good, to be alive is good.

Life is precious and wonderful.

But this doesn't answer a fundamental question.

Why?

Why did God create this world?

Let us this morning consider some options.

One of them is that God was simply bored, and God wanted to make things that would follow rules that God had thought up.

That what God wanted was obedient subjects to control.

This goes back to the idea that the god of the Old Testament was a tyrant who only cared about loyal subjects.

This is not the idea in the text.

God created life out of love.

God created life out of genuine desire to have relationship with creation.

God created life for us, for you and me, because God loves us and desires for us to trust God in all things.

Love is in the very nature and essence of who God is.

And it starts right here at the beginning of all things.

Instead of chaos, God gives us order, and goodness.

The truth of this is that life is a gift.

I suspect that we all know this on some level.

We know that to be alive today is a gift from God.

That every morning when we rise we give thanks to God that we have another day.

As people of faith we believe that the gift is given to us by God.

That God created this day for you, out of love.

And this is an important thing to remember.

God is not done creating!

God continues every day to create new things every day.

One idea of the creation is that God created the world and then stepped back and let it go.

We will see over and over that God continues to intervene in the world.

That God is always creating new things, and trying to get us back to this moment.

The moment where there is order in the world and it is good.

The moment when we are in a deep intimate relationship with our creator, the earth, and each other.

The moment before fear, mistrust, competition, lead us to bloodshed and the destruction of the planet and each other.

We still have moments.

I want to go back to floating on the water on the fourth of July.

When I said to myself God is good.

I meant all those things that in that moment I had a profound sense of God's love, that there was order, that this day was gift, and that it was good.

In that moment I was back when the world was new, when we trusted in the goodness of the world, and we were intimate with God.

Today as you leave church I hope you will have that same sense of the day.

That God has made this day for you out of love for you.

That life is good.

That there is meaning and purpose to life.

That God is not done creating, and that God is not done making this world better.

Maybe just maybe after leaving worship this morning you will say to yourself, "God is good"!

Amen