Out Of Nothing | Genesis 1:1-25
Introduction
I’m not going to try to hide that this is about my fifth or sixth version of this sermon this weekend, and that hurts. You know as a preacher you are being asked to come up with the equivalent of about 10 to 12 pages of content each week. And to see multiple versions of that fall to wayside does not feel good. God and I have had some words about that over the last couple of days. And in case you are wondering, he always wins.
He wins because I also know that to be a preacher means that I am called to steep in the word and study the word, and then share with you what I see there. I need to be changed by the word in the same ways that I hope you will all be changed by the word. And if I haven’t rightly felt what God is wanting me AND you to learn, then I can’t share it very well. So, I have to go back, steep and study more, and struggle with God so that I can then share when God finally has me ready. I have to slow down, which is one of our lessons today.
This week, what you AND I are both supposed to see as we jump back into Genesis 1 is two main things:
Slow Down and See God
God Creates Out of Nothing
First, we are to be reminded to slow down and not make God’s word into a list but instead, see that it is all about our relationship with him. Second, we are to see that one of the first things God shows us about himself is how he creates out of nothing, and how that aspect of his nature means so much—not only for creation but also for all of us as we walk with God now in this in between moment.
Genesis 1: Relationship
When we started out with Genesis 1:1a, the first half of the verse, we paused and noted that it says:
“In the beginning, God…”
(Genesis 1:1a, ESV)
We noted that all of Scripture and life is about God, and we asked “What if God’s main goal is that you and I might get more of him. Would that be enough?” Yet it’s funny what happens the moment we get to Genesis 1:1b, the second half of the verse:
“In the beginning God, created the heavens and the earth.”
(Genesis 1:1, ESV)
And we immediately begin to think ahead to the rest of Genesis 1. Even if we hadn’t read the whole thing this morning you likely would have gone there. Most of you have read it, heard it read to you from children’s story books, or have heard it preached. Even non-Christians know something about what Christians believe happened at creation. We get a little piece and then we begin to think of all the different days and the things God created. We hear the story in our head and we think of the different ways we have categorized it.
Maybe you learned it as a child with a song like my kids:
Day one, day and night.
Day two, heaven and earth.
Day three, seas and land.
Day four, sun moon and stars.
We make note of the order of creation, we make note of what was created, we note where creation peaks and we note the crashing intrusion of sin.
We also think of all the debates in Genesis. I know many of you began to wonder as you heard Genesis 1 being read this morning if I was going to share my position on exactly how each moment of creation panned out. Does Ryan think it was just a 24-hour day, or does he think it a longer period of time? Is there any room for evolution? What about the “gap theory”? Some of you wanted to see where I would wade into debates and where I wouldn’t. (I know you are out there today!)
And in focusing on these things—lists, categories, and debates—we forget to make reading of Scripture for what it is meant to be—God revealing himself to us. None of those questions or ideas are bad, and they are all worth talking about. But if we engage them without first seeing our relationship with our God, we will miss much of the point.
I spent a lot of time this week thinking about whether the tendency to make a list and miss relationship was more of a personality issue or a common human problem. I mean, maybe it was just me who does that? But I think I believe it is a common problem to all of us. What helped convince me of that is how often as a pastor I hear people share that they struggle with reading the Bible. People who are great at engaging relationally and people who struggle to engage relationally all struggle to read the Bible, me included. And that tells me we are not great as people in general in seeing the common thread of relationship within the story, within the lists. When we read the Old Testament, we seem to only see lists of rules, battles, or genealogies. When we read the New Testament we see a new list of rules, church difficulties, and the ways we need to strive to live. We don’t often see the very heart of God.
This tendency to miss relationship is something I know I struggle with at times. Maybe you can relate. I can see it particularly when I look at specific areas in my life. One happened back early in my marriage when we were remodeling our first house.
Our first remodel was a cute little 1940’s farmhouse that we purchased the year after we were married. I had grown up with a dad that was quite handy. He worked in construction when my parents were first married, and he has had a General Contractors license throughout his adult life. I had seen him remodel houses they bought to make into rentals and commercial office buildings. He built our family’s second home almost all by himself in the evenings. And, as the only boy in the family, I was often towed along to help.
I thought I knew all the components to making a good house, and what I didn’t know I could learn from a book. I knew to ensuring a good solid foundation. How to build straight and plumb walls. How to run water and electricity. Making sure you have good heating and cooling and protection from the elements. As Katie and I drew up the plans for that first house, I thought I had the list complete. I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do and how to do it.
So, one Saturday afternoon we tore into walls. We found the dragon mural from the days in the 1970s when the house was used as a drug den. We found out why the walls were over a foot thick—the entire thing was made of cinderblock! Piece by piece I pulled apart that house all the way to the studs. I thought I was getting it ready to rebuild from the ground up and was perfectly handling this remodel.
And I still remember very clearly the night when I laid there in our bed and I realized at that I had made a mistake. Looking to the left from our bed I could see all the way through the house into the garage. Looking the other way, I could see through a half-finished bathroom into the half-finished kitchen. Yes, I knew all the components to remodeling and building and was succeeding in getting that done. But I was doing the remodel like a new building. I had gone all the way down to the studs and didn’t realize that didn’t work so well in a remodel where you are still living in it. In a new house or a remodel where it isn’t occupied, you don’t have to worry about relationships within the building (other than the workers!). In a house with your new bride, you should care deeply about how the remodel will affect your relationship. And my wife had been cooking on a Coleman stove for weeks and was needing to vacuum our bed comforter almost daily. And I wish I could promise you that the bathroom was always running when we needed it. Katie didn’t complain, but it was clear I had missed the important component of relationship in our first remodel.
We can get the list right and still miss the relationship. My guess is each of you have done that as well. Whether it was the list for a trip and all you hoped to accomplish that you pushed forward with at all costs, your desire for YOUR perfect date night, or even the list you thought represented what your friend likes and doesn’t like, we all find ways to miss relationship and make it about the things and the list and not the person.
We often do the same thing here in Genesis 1 and with God in general. In the text that we read this morning from Genesis 1:1–25, in those 25 verses the word God is used 25 times. It is unavoidable that the main point of each and every verse is who God IS, what HE is doing, what HE is thinking, and how HE views HIS acts of creation. What God did in creation is important, but what is much more important is what we see GOD himself. It is about relationship with God and knowing him more.
Genesis 1: Out of Nothing
And it is interesting what you see and do when you slow down and look for relationship over the things. When I slowed down in our remodel and thought more about relationship, I saw how what seemed like simple things could make a big difference. How a little sheetrock here and there could provide a lot of privacy. How focusing on the kitchen and the bathroom first could ease a lot of pressure points.
In Genesis 1, when we slow down and look for relationship, we may be surprised at all we see. We will unpack a lot of those over the next several weeks. And the first relational connection comes right in Genesis 1:1:
“In the beginning God, created the heavens and the earth.”
(Genesis 1:1, ESV)
From the beginning we have God and then God creates. He creates out of nothing! No matter whether you think God used a big bang and slowly made all this happen, whether you believe that each of these subsequent moments are literal 24 hour days or day-ages, whether you think God spoke and a bird simply appeared or it was made over time from one form to another, all Christian traditions believe that God made this all out of nothing. In the beginning was God. God alone. And when he decided to create, he created out of nothing! He did not need anything to be there to work with so he could start his work. There was God, then there was creation. Something out of nothing.
And many of you may be thinking, “Okay. So what?” That seems like a data point, not a relational connection. But creating out of nothing is part of God’s very essence. That he is the God who creates out of NOTHING changes everything! Everything we see in creation is from the purposeful and creative mind of God matched with the unbridled power of his being. We see and know right from the beginning in Genesis 1 that God is a purposeful and creative being, and he creates with a power we can barely comprehend.
We see this repeatedly in Genesis 1:1:
“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.”
(Genesis 1:3 ESV)
“And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so.”
(Genesis 1:6–7 ESV)
“And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.”
(Genesis 1:9 ESV)
And we see the same thing with vegetation, stars, the sun and moon, creatures in the sea and the air, livestock and creeping things of the earth. God looks into the nothingness, has a plan, and calls it all into being.
That way of being is so foreign to you and me! The best we can ever do is take pieces of what is already made and try to recombine it to suit our purposes. That is as true for the wood in our houses and as it is with relationships in our life. Humans cannot make something out of nothing. And that leads us to a mentality that says there is only so much to go around, and it can only be used one way. We are taught from a young age that if Jimmy wants to play with the car I can’t play with it at the same time, I have to wait. I have a piece of paper and know that I can either use it to write a story or I can use it to light a fire—I can’t do both. And we begin to see life like a game of Monopoly where for me to win someone else has to lose. There’s a phrase for that:
Zero Sum Game
Meaning that we see life as though there are limited resources, nothing can ever be added to the equation, and there must be winners and losers. And as AI told me this week:
“This effect can be harmful because it can foster a lack of cooperation, lead to misjudgments, and create hostility, even when mutual benefits are possible.”
I believe that is very true and how we often act towards one another. But that is not true about God nor how he wants us to view this life. God shows us his ability to create out of nothing from the very beginning to set an expectation for us that NOTHING is impossible for God.
When we look at creation, we see that God was never boggled or stuck with what to do. God didn’t create the sun and then say, “Well, I guess the people on the other side of this rotating planet will just have to live in darkness for 12 hours a day.” No! He gave us a moon, that reflects light for the nighttime as well as stars to illuminate our nightly paths. God didn’t worry if birds, grasshoppers, mosquitoes, and dragonflies could all inhabit the same air and where they would live. God separated waters and land, created every creature he wanted to create, and he gave space and purpose for all of them. God didn’t wonder if he could make an animal with the beak of a duck, the tail of a beaver, and poisonous barbs on their legs like a snake’s fangs. God simply spoke out, “Platypus!” and it came into being!
God creating out of nothing means he makes the rules and he holds all the cards. He is not constrained in any of the ways you and I may imagine—that is what we mean when we say God is omnipotent. He is all powerful in every way. God lives in a win-win world and controls all the rules to make sure exactly what he wants to see happen will happen.
We see this play out throughout all of Scripture, not just at creation. God’s people are in bondage in Egypt? Not a problem. Not only can God make water turn to blood, hail consume one people’s crops and not another, but he can open a sea that his people might walk through and bring it crashing back down on top his enemies. When Israel goes to war against the Amorites in Joshua 10, God pauses the day so Israel has time to win. That goes against all the science we understand! How did God stop the world and people did not fly off, careen out into outer space? For the God who creates out of nothing—an omnipotent God—no problem!
You have a prophet going to speak against the people of Israel? Let’s have his donkey turn around and speak to him and prophesy against him as happened to Balaam with his donkey in Numbers 22. Need to conquer a village fortified with walls? Let’s have people march around it, blowing horns, and yelling so the walls come tumbling down like Jericho in Joshua chapter 6 which shouldn’t work outside of God’s power. We see prophets who feed widows and their children by multiplying food in jars. Miraculous healings of leprosy.
Yet even with all that evidence, when we see sin in this world we often think that God’s omnipotent power cannot be true. He has been thwarted. There is something stronger and more powerful than God. That sin is the greater force.
But when Jesus comes on the scene—this God who creates out of nothing, omnipotent and able to do whatever he wants, begins to come into full view. Diseases healed that people had since birth. Crowds of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, fed with a few fish and loaves of bread. The God of Job 9:8 walking on the water. In Jesus we really see this God who can create out of nothing do the impossible and completely deal with sin in the way only God can. God, immortal and uncreated, joins with the created. God, the creator of all things, becomes human. He lives a righteous human life and then does the impossible—he transfers the sinful life and consequences of every one of his people to himself and takes the punishment for us. He then gives his very righteousness to all of his sons and daughters that we might walk again in relationship with God just like Adam and Eve did in the garden. God purchases, in that moment, everything you and I could ever want and need and promises it will be TRUE! Sin doesn’t win. The God who can create out of nothing brings life even out of death.
Hudson Taylor, one of the amazing missionaries to China in the 1800s trusted this kind of God. He trusted that, through prayer, God would move in extraordinary ways and make his name known across Asia. And one of Taylor’s sayings was this:
“There are three stages to the work of God: impossible, difficult, done.”
Hudson Taylor
Hudson Taylor knew this God that we see in Genesis 1:1. A God who made all things out of nothing and could do anything to bring himself glory. Impossible? Difficult? Done by the God who creates out of nothing!
Out of Nothing: Our Walk with God
This God who creates out of nothing is not only showing us his character in Genesis to explain creation and set the stage for salvation, but he is also showing us his omnipotence to affect our everyday life here in between the first creation and his recreation. Start by thinking about your personal walk with God. I think many of us have some of this big view of God when we think about how we relate to him. We know he can hear our prayers just fine even if there are billions of other people he is watching as well. We trust God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us and is willing to meet each of us in real ways through his Holy Spirit. In these ways we trust in a God who creates out of nothing and doesn’t play by the same rules we have to play by in our relationships.
But what about “THAT” area. For each of us “that” area is different. Perhaps it is a past hurt you still carry with you. Perhaps it is a desire that you have not seen happen yet in your life. Perhaps it is an area of sin or growth that you feel like will never change. Can God reach even there?
The answer from the very beginning in Genesis is YES! This God who is present in your life through his Holy Spirit is acutely aware of every desire, pain, and difficulty you have in your life. God is not only present in your life in those areas, but he desires good for you just like he has in all of creation. We are learning throughout our lifetime that:
“[That] for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
(Romans 8:28 ESV)
It may not always seem apparent. It may in fact seem very far away and not apparent that God wants to change “that” area in your life. But for the God who creates out of nothing, this is not too hard. For the God who creates out of nothing, this is a miracle he can do for you.
This isn’t prosperity gospel. Now if you were to think that God’s biggest concern is for you to have a Gulf Stream G700 then we need to have a conversation. But when we are talking about your walk with God, God is close to you and knows exactly what you are feeling, he wants only good for you, and he is the God who can make it happen. And even if we don’t see it here, today, in this moment, he WILL do it. He died on the cross to ensure that it WILL happen. To buy that future FOR you and me. That is no small miracle already done for all of us.
How would you pray different to God today if you really believed that he was the God who creates out of nothing and can meet your real needs? What areas of your life would you hold out more to God to see him work through and in?
Out of Nothing: Our Walk with One Another
Even though I think trusting in God that way is hard for all of us, I think where we really struggle to trust in the God who creates out of nothing is in our relationship with one another. As a pastor, I hear all the time how much people think that God can only solve one problem or the other. Whether it is in our marriage, friendships, or our relationship with our church, we often assume one competing interest must win. And that makes sense. You and I have limited time, finite abilities, and only so many gifts from God. It would make sense that we would assume that we can only get so much from one another in relationship.
But for the God who creates out of nothing? Could he really let us walk with one another and find, wonder upon wonders, that in relationship with each other we have our needs met? That we can be exhorted and grown together? That we can find our needs and joys truly met with this—a ragtag group of sinful people? For the God who creates out of nothing, even that is possible.
In fact, we are commanded to believe we can be these people in God’s power. Peter says this:
“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.”
(1 Peter 3:8–9 ESV)
WE are called to BE a blessing to one another. It is our calling Peter says. Through unity of mind, love, humility and a tender heart, God expects that we truly can help one another, even in our variety of needs and desires. Your desire for more help and friendship in your life does not need to compete with someone else’s need to rest and take a break. A desire for more emotional connection does not compete against someone’s desire to grow intellectually. Artistic expression doesn’t compete against structure, outreach doesn’t compete against in-reach. Not for a God who creates out of nothing.
We find, in this weird life with other Christians, that God is using our differences as much as our similarities to build us up closer to him and closer to one another. God is using different rules than we would expect. Maybe it is as we should expect!
“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
(Ephesians 4:15–16 ESV)
When each part works, we make the whole body grow in love. We grow up in every into Christ. But each part must work properly. Each part must “speak the truth in love.” And I think we would do that more easily if we remembered we serve and are loved by the God who made all things out of nothing! This would be an easy thing for him to do in our community. Take our place, be ourselves, use our gifts, speak the truth to one another about what we need…and wait and see God work! He surely can allow our unique differences and desires to not only help one another, but build us ALL up in love and to see him more.
Imagine if we were truly FOR one another in this way. If we not only shared where we feel alone like I encouraged us last week, but what if we also shared our desires, our needs, our hopes, our dreams. What if we let one another really know what would make our hearts sing as we look to God? What if, especially in this community at Main Street, a church, we trusted in this type of God that when we talk “truth” with one another that he will build us ALL up? What if we believed that the God who creates out of nothing can accomplish even that miraculous change?
Out of Nothing: In Our Church
You don’t usually see churches work that way. Churches often have a singular vision, two or three priorities, and just a handful of ways they try to reach one another. They aren’t usually asking one another about their biggest needs. We don’t usually ask one another what would help each of us to see God better. We don’t ask how we could really serve one another. But what if we really meant what we say in our motto:
Love God
Love Others
Make Disciples of Jesus
What if in our radical pursuit to know and love God we really wanted to know and love one another as well? And what if we trusted that the God who can create out of nothing sees no contradiction between your needs, your desires and the needs and desires of the people sitting all around you? In fact, what if it is exactly HERE, in those differences, at Main Street Church, that God wants to perform the miracle of growing us all closer to himself THROUGH those distinct ways we are each part of the body of Christ?
I think we are at a distinct moment as Main Street Church where we can choose if this is how we want to live with one another. It feels like churches are always in some sort of remodel, and our last two years here at Main Street were definitely a remodel. And I’m sorry because I don’t know if we did it great. We made assumptions, some good some bad. Our God hasn’t given us the book on what to do in every moment of church life. But like a remodel, we definitely need to slow down and see the relationships. Both with God and one another.
Look around at this building, because I think it is a good physical representation of where we are today as a church. This building can look a little blah. It lacks some personality here and there. The paint isn’t perfect. But this building has great bones—it is literally made of concrete from top to bottom. If a bomb was to go off in Boise you would want to be in THIS building. This building is incredibly functional, and it is a huge blessing to us to have to use for ministry here in downtown Boise. It has huge potential for the future!
Our body is a lot like this. We may be a little worse for the wear in some ways right now…its been a tough couple of years. We may be feeling a little blah in certain areas—lacking some personality. But we have good bones. We rightly love God. We love one another. And we get to decide together if we will live in the same trajectory of God’s plan from Genesis through the New Testament and into today. Will we see and know our God who created from nothing and trust in HIS power to make us into the people and church he has called us to be? Will we begin to share with one another our thoughts, our desires, the beauty of God that we have each seen and love and trust in this God, the God of creation and unbridled power, and find that in his power he can meet every one of us and our needs? I think we can.
Response
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
(Genesis 1:1, ESV)
Slow Down and See God
God Creates Out of Nothing
We come to Genesis in this series to see the plan of God for our life in this in between moment. And we find here that it is all about our relationship with God. We can’t have enough sermons on that idea. And we see one of the first things he shows us about himself is his very essence as the God who creates out of nothing. That is a God we can trust to do the impossible in our lives—personally and corporately.
I want to encourage you to stop and slow down in our response time today. I want you to ask only two main questions of yourself and pray about them:
Where do you need to slow down and see life about your relationship with God?
Do you know God as the God who creates out of nothing? Do you need to trust his unlimited power and goodness for you more:
In your walk with him?
In your relationship with others around you?
In our church?
And I know this may be scary, but I want to invite our church into a time of corporate prayer today. I’m going to trust in the God who can create out of nothing and do the impossible by opening up this time, and I want to encourage you to similarly trust him. I want to encourage you to pray out loud for one another. To pray for our church. Ask our omnipotent God to do the impossible. Ask him to do the impossible in your walk with him, ask him to do the impossible in your relationships with one another, and ask him to do the impossible in our church life. I’m going to have the worship team come up and play quietly, but I want to encourage you: as you think about this God who has called us into relationship with himself, as you think about this God who creates out of nothing, what impossible ask can you ask him? For yourself, for your friends, for your church? Ask him out loud this morning.
Communion
Benediction
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
(Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV)
