In The Beginning God

January 13, 2008
First Sunday after the Epiphany

from John 13:12-17 and 2 Chronicles 27

My sermon outline:

• Some scientists challenge God to a contest… “We have discovered how to make life…” God accepts their challenge. As they begin collecting some dirt from which to make life, God says “Wait a minute. Make your own dirt.”

• The other day, Sponge Bob Square Pants. Where’d he come from?

Janet M. funeral yesterday. Story of where she came from. That was the middle of an earlier story, though, one that even goes back to the physical construction of this church. And that was the middle of an earlier story.

Every story goes back to another one. Sashi sometimes asks how God made puppies…

Every story goes back to another one.

Except God’s. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There is no “before God”. Gospel of John puts it a little differently – in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. The beginning of the story is the introduction of God.

• God is introduced as being supreme in power and in wisdom. Having the knowledge and the ability to speak creation out of nothing, order out of chaos, existence out of nothingness. And he takes the dust he has made and forms it into a person, then breathes life into it.

• If you ask who any one of us are, we are likely to give responses in relationship to others. I’m pastor of Spring City UMC, I’m a husband, a father, a son, etc. God identifies himself in relation to himself. Generations after creating earth, creating life, God sends Moses. Who shall I say sent me? “I AM WHO I AM”

• God declares that creation is good. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good…” God don’t make no junk. It was good because it was made by God and it was good because it had been ordered by God. And though God rested on the 7th day, God continued to order and set plans in motion, even laying the foundation for the redemption of humanity and the reconciliation of all creation.

• God’s good creation inspires generations to awe. The psalmist wrote “When I consider… what is man that you are mindful of him?” and he answers “you have crowned him with glory and honor.” Upon the creation of mankind, God saw that it was very good.

• Made in the image of God. Not necessarily look like God, but bear the characteristics. Rational and creative, moral and spiritual, ability to be like God.

• From this beginning we see God involved with the restoration and reconciliation of creation. Restoration (returning to original new state) and reconciliation (to make good again, reunite, bring together again)

• We are what he has made us to be, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

• Hymn 117 O God Our Help In Ages Past


- Pastor Kerry
This Sunday: 71 in worship