SPEAKER_00: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_01: You were there in uh John 1-1.
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of interesting as I was working through these numbers that Genesis 1-1 and John 1-1 were actually tied.
SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, and there were some cards that they were both on the same card.
SPEAKER_01: And so that tells you that this is an incredibly foundational verse, and it has a great impact in our lives, in our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's the um here's the theme for today.
SPEAKER_01: The big idea, the title for the message today is God created.
SPEAKER_01: It is the foundational truth of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is built on that phrase, God created.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at the two scriptures and see how they parallel and they come together to give us that truth.
SPEAKER_01: First is Genesis 1.1, a scripture that if you've been in church in any amount of time, you'll know that scripture.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And then John chapter 1, verse 1, and you can just in your Bibles stay there if you want.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the Word.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the Word, that's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: When you see the capital W in the Word in the book of John, he is referring there to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So he says very clearly, in the beginning was Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the word Jesus was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_01: He was with God in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: All things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.
SPEAKER_01: And so you see there a very clear statement, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, that stakes a very foundational and a very clear ground.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God already existed, and God made the world and everything in it.
SPEAKER_01: Now that is an incredibly foundational truth, and it is actually the foundation on which everything we know about life is built.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the very underpinnings of salvation are built on this truth, as we'll see in a moment.
SPEAKER_01: It is also why this truth has been under constant assault from the very beginning of time.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can knock out the pillar of God created, then you can make the definition of life anything you want, you can make the definition of salvation anything you want, and you can make up anything for life after death that you want.
SPEAKER_01: But if this is a truth that God created the heavens and the earth, he created man, everything was created through him, then as the creator, he is the sole authority of life and has the right to define life, and we must respond to that.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to give you three truths today.
SPEAKER_01: And as I prayed through this message, there's a whole lot of great stuff on how you answer questions of science.
SPEAKER_01: Science that is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Ways that in today's world, as science continues to advance, it does not undercut the truth of God created.
SPEAKER_01: We just discover more and more and more how true it is that God created.
SPEAKER_01: And so as I was working through this week, I mean I got bogged down, and about Thursday, I realized this is a seven-week series.
SPEAKER_01: I can't get it all in on one Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's so much of that, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01: There's actually revival going on in the scientific community that you never hear about.
SPEAKER_01: Because as the more our scientific knowledge advances, the more clearly it becomes that the world that we live in and its design is reflective of an intelligent and purposeful design, which means there is an intelligent, purposeful, and powerful designer or creator.
SPEAKER_01: And so rather than give you a whole bunch of facts and bog down and all of that, I thought it was more important for us to spend some time and look at the foundational truth that God created is for us as Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Because two things happen.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, when we are anchored and understand the truth of God created, then we have a framework to understand who He is, understand salvation, understand Scripture, and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: We also are better equipped to live in a world that is attempting to reject God, and one of the main attacks that they level against the Lord is He is not the creator.
SPEAKER_01: This is not a surprise to God.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout Scripture, there are places that we could go to that explain to us God is the creator, the fullness of who he is is reflected in his creation.
SPEAKER_01: What is man that you are mindful of us, that in the midst of all this, you have us in this.
SPEAKER_01: And then the reality that man, when he rejects God as creator, rejects all logic and ability to understand salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And so we, I think, have to be equipped with the foundation of how important it is that we understand and not back away from this truth that God created.
SPEAKER_01: And he is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first truth I want to show you this morning: God created.
SPEAKER_01: It establishes his authority as God.
SPEAKER_01: And that is vital that we understand that.
SPEAKER_01: So the truth is this is who God is.
SPEAKER_01: As God, as the creator God, he has the authority of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: But that also means that there are attacks against his person and authority as God.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'll look and see kind of how both those work.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the first thing you need to understand about this: the authority of God.
SPEAKER_01: As the creator, it is his creation.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what the Bible says in John 1 1.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
SPEAKER_01: He was with God in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: All things were created through him, and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created.
SPEAKER_01: Now, you can't get any more clear than that.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible has clearly staked the ground that God is the creator, and everything in it is his creation, made by his hand, designed by his mind and heart for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: There is no way to write this or interpret this out of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: God is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: To write this out of scripture is to remove his authority as God.
SPEAKER_01: You also can't take Scripture, and because you live in this world and you hear about dinosaurs and you hear about millions of years and all this kind of stuff, start making up theories to sort of make Scripture become more relevant to the conversation and discourse that goes on in the world around us.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot do that.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture makes it clear God designed it and God created it, and nothing was created outside of him.
SPEAKER_01: It is literally his person and authority of who he is as God.
SPEAKER_01: There is no writing it out, there is no interpreting it, there is no changing what it says, there is not the ability to try to shoehorn it into some modern discussion of science or evolution or some other kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: If you change it, you have thrown away the truth of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the verse that says, All scripture is inspired by God.
SPEAKER_01: God himself wrote scripture, and God himself says he is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: God himself instructed John to write this passage of Scripture and say that nothing was created outside of his work.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have got to understand that.
SPEAKER_01: That is important because the authority of Scripture is written by that.
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes you'll hear people say stuff like this well, this is not a book of science, this is a book of theology.
SPEAKER_01: And they're trying to create some avenue to allow errors or misstatements in Scripture somehow that they think have come from modern science and discussion.
SPEAKER_01: And they're trying to like hold on to something of Scripture, and they're trying to shoehorn in this interpretation and deal and go, well, it's not primarily a book of theology, and so if it doesn't really say it right, if it's not aggregate, listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: If Scripture is not true in every word of it, then none of it is true.
SPEAKER_01: If it is not absolutely 100% infallible and without error, then how are you going to know what sin is and what sin is not?
SPEAKER_01: Because you can just say, well, it was an error on the science, it was an error on that, it was an error on that, so it's just an error here.
SPEAKER_01: When you get into a situation where you read in John chapter 1, I mean in Genesis chapter 1, where God is creating, and the Bible makes very clear in Genesis chapter 1, God made male and female, he made them in his image.
SPEAKER_01: When he explains Adam was created this way, and Eve was complete was created in a completely different way, then how in the world can we state what a family is, what God's design of a family is, what personhood is for a human being, how can we define what sin is and what sin is not?
SPEAKER_01: Because if it's not a book of science, it's a book of theology, then it's okay for our science to be wrong, so we can just go over here and change our theology.
SPEAKER_01: There's no room for that in Bible-believing Christians.
SPEAKER_01: If this is the inspired, infallible word of God, then God created establishes his authority as God.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot change or interpret what it says.
SPEAKER_01: God made it, he made it by his design, he made it purposefully, he made it as it is, and that is his right and prerogative as God.
SPEAKER_01: And you can't change it.
SPEAKER_01: You can't walk away from it.
SPEAKER_01: Now here's the other thing you find in those scientific discourses.
SPEAKER_01: What you learn as you begin to study through those matters and address through those matters, what you're finding is the corollary, the opposite of the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Science, in the hands of people who want to reject God, use science as a tool to attempt to destroy the person of God or his authority as God by destroying his position as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: What do you think about the whole Big Bang theory and the and the evolution and all the other mental gymnastics and backflips that people do to try to create somehow that the complexity of the human body and mind and soul as we know it today and all of that functions?
SPEAKER_01: How in the world did we end up here?
SPEAKER_01: It can't be by accident.
SPEAKER_01: It's too complex, it's too purposefully designed, it's too powerfully designed.
SPEAKER_01: It can't happen that way.
SPEAKER_01: So then why would somebody manufacture some other scientific theory and ignore the clear hand of intelligent design in life today?
SPEAKER_01: It is fundamentally because they are attempting to remove God as the creator so we do not have to respond to God as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation is built on the theology of God as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And this may be a theology book, but its science is accurate.
SPEAKER_01: Because it is all accurate in its writing and its design by creator God.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how we have to understand that God as the creator establishes his authority of creation.
SPEAKER_01: If God is the creator, it is his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And if you read through Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3, you find out what he makes clear.
SPEAKER_01: I am God, I've made it this way.
SPEAKER_01: I've made it for this purpose.
SPEAKER_01: Then I'm going to create man, humankind, Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to create in them specific design.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to give them purpose.
SPEAKER_01: I want them to love and enjoy the creation I've created for them and live in it.
SPEAKER_01: I want them to be fruitful and multiply in it.
SPEAKER_01: I want them to walk with me in relationship in the beauty of the place that I've created for them.
SPEAKER_01: And because I want them to walk in relationship with me, I'm going to put a choice in front of them so they choose to love me.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of creating robots or automatons.
SPEAKER_01: God has the authority and the right to do that because He is the creator and it is creation.
SPEAKER_01: And he sets the rules in place.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to put this tree in the middle of the garden.
SPEAKER_01: I've made it beautiful for you to look at, enjoy looking at it, eat out of everything else, but you cannot eat of that fruit.
SPEAKER_01: Choose to follow my rules.
SPEAKER_01: And if you eat of it, there are consequences.
SPEAKER_01: There is judgment for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Rejecting my rules.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we find?
SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve, they reject God's rules.
SPEAKER_01: They eat of the fruit.
SPEAKER_01: There is judgment just as God has pronounced.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_01: In establishing his authority of God as God created, we have to understand that he is allowed to make the standard of holiness.
SPEAKER_01: He is allowed to determine the Ten Commandments, and that that is how life must work.
SPEAKER_01: And in his holiness, he is required to judge the failures of his creation according to his rules.
SPEAKER_01: But you also see as God created, God is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: It says that he created the birds of the air and the fish of the sea and the beasts on the land, and he created the trees and the flowers and all of that, and he gave it life and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Then he created Adam and He breathed his own breath of life into him.
SPEAKER_01: And then he created Eve and created life in her in that unique way when he caused Adam to fall asleep and he pulled out that rib and expanded it and turned her into that.
SPEAKER_01: He breathed life into them as he said, You shall come together as man and wife.
SPEAKER_01: He is the author of life as he has created children and the biology of having children through husbands and wives that live each other, love each other and are married, and he created family and he created that to function that way.
SPEAKER_01: He is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: When we sinned, we brought death into the world, not God.
SPEAKER_01: Man sinned.
SPEAKER_01: And God judged that.
SPEAKER_01: But because he is the creator God, he is the author of life, he immediately steps into our judgment and our sin and then creates new life through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he pronounces there will be a Savior who will come.
SPEAKER_01: And if you will continue to follow me, I will make a path for you to return.
SPEAKER_01: I will create a plan of redemption for you.
SPEAKER_01: And I will send you a redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And I myself will step into that sin and pay the price for your sin and raise again.
SPEAKER_01: And through Jesus, he is still the author of life and the creator of life.
SPEAKER_01: When you understand him as the creator and his authority as God, you understand that he has the authority to be the judge.
SPEAKER_01: And because he's the judge and he knows what the penalty of sin is, he himself is equipped to pay his own penalty for sin in our place as the author of life, as the creator of life, as the creator of God, and he can create new life in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It is important, John 1-1.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason that he rehearses back in the beginning and he connects the personhood of Jesus with the personhood of God.
SPEAKER_01: We see in this the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_01: In Genesis chapter 1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That word, that Hebrew word, is the plural picture of God.
SPEAKER_01: It is the magnitude of God, his creator God.
SPEAKER_01: It speaks of the entirety of the Trinity of God.
SPEAKER_01: God is so incredibly God that it's hard for us to even understand.
SPEAKER_01: We don't even have the capacity to understand who He is.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture teaches us that God reveals Himself.
SPEAKER_01: He is one God, but reveals Himself in three persons.
SPEAKER_01: He expresses Himself to us in the person of God the Father, the person of God the Son, and the person of God the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And here he makes it clear that Jesus was with God and Jesus was God, and he establishes the deity of Jesus Christ because he is establishing his authority as the creator God to establish the means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: And salvation comes through Jesus and Him alone.
SPEAKER_01: Only God could create salvation as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: Only God as the giver of life and the author of life can create the means of new life.
SPEAKER_01: And when you start eradicating God as the creator, you are eradicating his authority to establish the rules, to judge sin, but also to create the means of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is important that we understand that.
SPEAKER_01: And when people are having these arguments and they're pushing back on God as creator, it is inherent in the sin nature of man to reject God as creator so that we can reject his rules so that we can do what we want to do and how we want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what scripture teaches.
SPEAKER_01: In Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve sin, it's very clear what the rules are.
SPEAKER_01: They understand what the rules are.
SPEAKER_01: You do not eat of that fruit, and because Satan lies to them and it challenges the character of God, he doesn't have the right to make those rules.
SPEAKER_01: And his character is manipulative and not loving, and he's holding out on you, and that fruit will make you wise like he is, and you can be like him, and they eat because they want to be God.
SPEAKER_01: Satan lies and brings those lies in because he wants to be God.
SPEAKER_01: The essence of sin is fighting against the truth of God created.
SPEAKER_01: I, if I want to do things my own way, I am not allowed to by the teaching of Scripture, by the standards that God has set up as the creator, and I'm not going to follow it that way, and I'm going to do it that way, my way, and the only way I can do that is to try to eradicate him as the authority to establish the standards for his creation.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what that's all about.
SPEAKER_01: It's fighting against creation because we want to fight against God and we want to reject him.
SPEAKER_01: That's what that's all about.
SPEAKER_01: Now I would encourage you to spend time learning about the science of creation and all the validations of that.
SPEAKER_01: There are some great organizations and resources out there.
SPEAKER_01: There's things like answers in Genesis and all that kind of stuff that when you have questions about dinosaurs and millions of years and young earth and evolution and natural adaptation and all this kind of stuff, there are answers to all of that.
SPEAKER_01: There are great answers to all of that.
SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to study those.
SPEAKER_01: The more you study that, the better your understanding is about just how truly.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture is.
SPEAKER_01: And the more you're equipped to push back on statements like this is a book of theology, not a book of science.
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it's a book of theology because it's the definition of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: But the definition of who God is is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And if you reject that, you've rejected the foundational principle of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got to understand that and be able to push back on that and understand that.
SPEAKER_01: Janet and I happen to love creation and Genesis 1.1 and John 1.1 and Romans chapter 1 and Psalm chapter 8 and Psalm 139 and all these scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: We taught our kids answers in Genesis and took them through that.
SPEAKER_01: When we were at First Baptist Cabot, we came and we created a children's church that Janet and I wrote.
SPEAKER_01: We created out of our own pedestrian minds and all of that.
SPEAKER_01: And we called it Genesis Lab.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we called it.
SPEAKER_01: And the foundation of children's church there, our Genesis lab, was God is the Creator.
SPEAKER_01: And so we created it, made it look like a science lab, and it was kind of a fun sort of a version of a science lab, kind of a Jimmy Neutron type science lab.
SPEAKER_01: If you guys are, some of y'all are adept culturally and you understand the joy that is Jimmy Neutron, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you watch Jimmy Neutron, you'll understand Janet has a design for her grandmother name to be beautiful gorgeous.
SPEAKER_01: Those of you who know Jimmy Neutron, you'll appreciate that, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so then we had a time machine in there, and one of the things we did when we taught Scripture, trying to teach the reality of Scripture and the way that kids' minds work and all of that, rather than teach you about David, we'd just bring David back in the time machine and he taught you about his life and scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And kids have the ability to mesh imagination and truth, and we would teach them that.
SPEAKER_01: And we would use science experiments to show them intelligent design, and we would make stuff stink and blow up and make all kinds of foam and do all this other kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And in all of that, we're teaching them all the way through.
SPEAKER_01: God is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And because God is the creator, here's certain things we know.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is the creator, it means he created you.
SPEAKER_01: And you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_01: God is your creator and has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Just think about what it says in Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: I am fearfully and wonderfully laid.
SPEAKER_01: It also says that He knew me before I was formed in my mother's womb.
SPEAKER_01: God has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what your family is, what your circumstance is, where you came from, God has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: However you were born, wherever you were born, God has a design for you, He has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: And because God is the creator, you can understand He created you and He loves you and He has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: We also understand, because God is the creator, that we have a definition to understand what sin is.
SPEAKER_01: And that God judges sin.
SPEAKER_01: But because God is the creator and God has a plan for your life, He loved you so much Jesus stepped out of heaven and went to the cross and died in your place and rose again, conquering death and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And he can do that because he was God.
SPEAKER_01: As the creator of life, he can conquer death and sin, be resurrected from the dead to offer us new life because of his authority as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what all of these arguments are fighting against.
SPEAKER_01: And encourage you to just go read Romans 1.
SPEAKER_01: Take some time to read that.
SPEAKER_01: And it sets up very clearly the fullness of who God is, is clearly designed in creation.
SPEAKER_01: And it calls to man to look up and find out who the creator is and know him.
SPEAKER_01: And when man rejects the creator, it destroys his ability to reason and understand and search for God.
SPEAKER_01: Truth one, God created is what establishes his authority as God, and it is the foundation of all of our understanding of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Truth number two, God created means this.
SPEAKER_01: See, that's what sin is.
SPEAKER_01: It is rejecting the privilege of God as creator to set the rules for his creation.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot back away from an understanding of what sin is.
SPEAKER_01: In today's world, too many times we want to talk about five neat ways to have a good marriage, five neat ways to do this, five ways to deal with struggles in life, five ways to deal with going through a storm in life or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the reality of what we live in.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a broken, sin wrecked world.
SPEAKER_01: When sin entered into this world, the Bible says very clearly that creation groans under the impact of sin.
SPEAKER_01: It deteriorates because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: And then we are surrounded by people who have been broken by sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so we have sinners living in a sinful world, and all of this happens around us.
SPEAKER_01: And that is the reality of what has happened.
SPEAKER_01: And it all happens because of that fundamental truth that man says, no.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: That's the essence of sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's why people want to reject God as the creator instead of saying, look at all this.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way anybody could possibly think this all came about except by a creator.
SPEAKER_01: Who is the creator?
SPEAKER_01: Psalm chapter 8, for example.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the magnitude of everything around us, the power and the beauty and all of this, and he says, Oh, what is man that you are mindful of us?
SPEAKER_01: You go through storms like we went through two weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: You go through a hurricane, you go through a tornado.
SPEAKER_01: You can't help but understand there is something way bigger than us.
SPEAKER_01: You stand on a beach and you look out at the ocean.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, what is man that you are mindful of us?
SPEAKER_01: All of that calls to us as a creator.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way the system of that and the function of that, there's no way all of that happened through some weird Big Bang or some other kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01: There's an old preacher joke that people tell, uh preachers used to tell about these scientists that had gotten together, and you really it becomes more relevant even today because you can add all of this AI and all of this science and all of this other stuff, and these scientists get together and they go to God and they say, okay, we we are we we we can create life just like you did.
SPEAKER_01: We have figured it out, you're not that special.
SPEAKER_01: We can be there, we have all these tools, we have developed the capacity to create life.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, we can create life exactly the way you did.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Okay, I'll take that challenge.
SPEAKER_01: Have at it.
SPEAKER_01: And they say, okay, and they kneel down in the dirt and they start to form up the shape of a body in the dirt, and God says, Go get your own dirt.
SPEAKER_01: We are striving in every way we possibly can to be God, to be like God.
SPEAKER_01: That struggle that Eve had when she's looking at that fruit.
SPEAKER_01: It is desirable to make me wise like God.
SPEAKER_01: I can be like God.
SPEAKER_01: Does he really love me?
SPEAKER_01: Is he really holding out on me?
SPEAKER_01: Can I do that?
SPEAKER_01: And the essence of our response to a creator-loving God is to say no.
SPEAKER_01: And that's sin.
SPEAKER_01: And it must be judged.
SPEAKER_01: Our world is broken because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: People struggle because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: We have wrong definitions of marriage and wrong definitions of human personhood and identity and all of that because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: We have the wrong definition of money and resources and how we treat that, and we're greedy because of sin, because we want it our way, and we don't want to follow the standards that are established by the authority of God as the Creator.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way around that.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is so bad and it is such an affront to God, it is so evil that he judges it by death.
SPEAKER_01: But his love is so great.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came and died in our place.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't remove the judgment, he didn't remove the standards, he took the judgment himself on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And now salvation is offered to us.
SPEAKER_01: There has to be a response.
SPEAKER_01: Romans chapter 1 talks very clearly about the fact that all of God is represented in all of this creation and it calls to us.
SPEAKER_01: And something in the beauty of all that, something in the magnitude of all that, in the terror of a hurricane, or in the beauty of a snow-capped mountain in the middle of a mountain range, or in the incredible, endless magnitude of looking out over an ocean that you cannot possibly see the end of.
SPEAKER_01: It's the call to us of the magnitude of who God is, that there is a creator, and it should pull my heart to say, I want to know you, because you are the creator.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I had a moment we were in a my earlier career before I was called to preach.
SPEAKER_01: I was I traveled a lot around the country, and I had a weekend that I spent in uh Washington State, and I was on the eastern side of Washington in Idaho, has a little finger that goes up there in a place called Court d'Alane.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you may have been to Courtalane, it was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: So I went over and I played around in Queer Lane, and above that is a uh is a ski resort, and you're really up high, you're really up north, you're in high elevations in that point.
SPEAKER_01: Now I am not a good skier, and I know I'm not a good skier.
SPEAKER_01: I skied one time and I tore tore the MCL in both knees in one wreck.
SPEAKER_01: That's impressive, right?
SPEAKER_01: You don't get on skis anymore when you do that, right?
SPEAKER_01: But but I love the snow, I love the mountains, I love all of that, Janet.
SPEAKER_01: I love the mountains.
SPEAKER_01: So I found a deal where you could go take a snowmobile ride up and down the mountains, and it was incredible.
SPEAKER_01: And so I showed up that morning, it's overcast, it's a yucky day, it's snowing, it's gray, it's all that.
SPEAKER_01: So nobody else came but me.
SPEAKER_01: And so the guy that owns the snowmobiles showed up, and I'm standing there, and we talk a little bit, and he's like, you know, nobody else is here, and he's kind of like, you know, this is wrecking my morning for just one person.
SPEAKER_01: Is it worth my time?
SPEAKER_01: We're chatting, and he's a nice guy.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, I tell you what, you you sound like a nice guy.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'll tell you what, we'll go.
SPEAKER_01: Would you mind if I take my son along and we'll just kind of make it a dad Sunday and you can follow with us?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Great, that's awesome, man.
SPEAKER_01: Like, bring your son, that's great, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01: So we go, we get on the snowmobile, and he, I don't know this, but he's testing me out.
SPEAKER_01: So we go and we start on this trail.
SPEAKER_01: He goes launching off this trail and I can handle it.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes over here and I can handle it, and he goes up a little thing I can handle.
SPEAKER_01: So then he pulls over and he says, Okay, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: You can handle that well, you're doing fine.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go have some fun.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Let's roll.
SPEAKER_01: And so we head off and we get off the beaten path, and we're going through the mountains, and we're on little things like this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm like, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a little bit intimidating, and I'm thinking, this is, but we're having to do all that.
SPEAKER_01: And so he pulls over on the trail, and we're literally on this trail.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like mountain right here, and like nothing but space there, and it's not much wider than our uh than our snowmobile.
SPEAKER_01: We're on this deal.
SPEAKER_01: He pulls over, he comes back, and he says, Okay, here's what I need you to do.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to keep watching on your right.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no kidding.
SPEAKER_01: No, seriously, he says, keep watching on your right, up high.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What am I looking for?
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, You'll know it when you see it.
SPEAKER_01: Gets back on, and here we go.
SPEAKER_01: And as we continue to climb our elevations, I can't see anything because the cloud cover is so awful.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just gray, ugly, all this kind of a deal.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, as we're going up this trail, we crest the crowd, the cloud level.
SPEAKER_01: We come out of the clouds and we are higher than the cloud level.
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I thought as we came through that gray and the light exploded was God said, Let there be light.
SPEAKER_01: My first reaction was, only God could paint a picture like this.
SPEAKER_01: My reaction internally was, this mountains and all of this, and in one four-minute set, I've got mountains and I've got magnitude and danger and beauty and clouds and light and elevation, and I've got weather systems below the clouds, above the clouds.
SPEAKER_01: I've got all of this magnitude of creation.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm telling you, I just about broke.
SPEAKER_01: If I wasn't so worried about falling off the edge, I'd have gotten on my knees and had church right there.
SPEAKER_01: Creation calls to us that there is a creator.
SPEAKER_01: I remember the night Mabrie was born.
SPEAKER_01: Or that day, one night, but it was that day.
SPEAKER_01: I remember being there, I'm in awe of this whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm already intimidated because I'm thinking, I'm gonna have to pay for a wedding in college, and I got all this going on.
SPEAKER_01: You know, y'all been there, right?
SPEAKER_01: Dad, you got all this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, what have we done?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to do all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm in there, and it's just kind of amazing.
SPEAKER_01: And and Mabry comes out, and I look at the doctor and I look at her.
SPEAKER_01: There is a creator.
SPEAKER_01: The miraculous, incredible picture of life being created.
SPEAKER_01: That is not an accident.
SPEAKER_01: It was designed that way.
SPEAKER_01: There is a spiritual, incredible reality that happens when egg and sperm come together, and there is a life that is birthed.
SPEAKER_01: They still don't understand the mechanism.
SPEAKER_01: They still can't break it down.
SPEAKER_01: You still can't define it.
SPEAKER_01: There is only one answer: the creator God, nothing is created without Him.
SPEAKER_01: He is the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
SPEAKER_01: I have planned you before you were in your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_01: And I must respond to that call.
SPEAKER_01: I have got to recognize life does not function the way I design it to function.
SPEAKER_01: It only functions the way God designed it.
SPEAKER_01: I have got to understand there are laws and rules in place, and there are things that are happening that are greater than me.
SPEAKER_01: They are larger than me.
SPEAKER_01: There are consequences to things when we do them wrong.
SPEAKER_01: There are consequences to that.
SPEAKER_01: There is a price to be paid for that.
SPEAKER_01: There is judgment for that.
SPEAKER_01: There is brokenness because of that.
SPEAKER_01: That should call me to find what is the answer to brokenness?
SPEAKER_01: What is the answer to forgiveness?
SPEAKER_01: Where does it lie?
SPEAKER_01: And in the midst of all of this miracle of life and all of that, and I'm looking at this brokenness, the only response can be to turn to the Creator God, who's the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: It helps me understand the corollary of that.
SPEAKER_01: The truth is this, then what I understand, the negative, the attack on that is man trying to elevate himself.
SPEAKER_01: If I can define it, I'm smart enough to be in control of it.
SPEAKER_01: If I can define another way of Christianity, another way of creation, if I can take something like this piece and this piece, and this fact and this idea and this theorem, and I can wrap that together in some way that there's not a creator God, then I don't have to respond to God's authority.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we deal with as humans at an existential level.
SPEAKER_01: And you've got to understand that's what that is.
SPEAKER_01: And you gotta understand when you end up in the absurdity of these things that we end up in today, not understanding the environment, not understanding what's really happening, not understanding true, that we have a responsibility because we were put here and told to be fruitful and multiply, not destroy it.
SPEAKER_01: But also understand that we live in a deteriorating world because of the impact of sin, and the only answer is not EVs, but it's salvation in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the ultimate end of this is not that it's destroyed and there's some apocalypse.
SPEAKER_01: The ultimate end of this is God's plan of redemption, to redeem his world and set it back to where it was, and he has the authority and the power to do that as Creator God.
SPEAKER_01: And as the author of life, he has created the means of salvation and the means of redemption to accomplish that.
SPEAKER_01: When we say that's not what life is, and we flippantly destroy unborn lives, we are saying I don't want to follow the authority of God.
SPEAKER_01: When we try to redefine personhood, we are saying I don't want to follow God, I want to do what I want to do.
SPEAKER_01: When we take the definitions of marriage and we destroy that and we wonder that it has an effect on our society, we are saying, I am not going to follow the way God created life to function.
SPEAKER_01: And it is our pushback.
SPEAKER_01: And we've got to understand it is not your privilege to push back, it is your responsibility to respond to God's authority.
SPEAKER_01: And that brings us to the plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: God's truth number three.
SPEAKER_01: God created, establishes his power and his plan to redeem.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He spoke this and it was good, and he spoke this and it was good, and he spoke this and it was good, and then he created Adam and He said, Look at all this, and then He created Eve and He brought them together, and He creates life that way, and He says, Do all this, and we sin.
SPEAKER_01: He has not given up on His creation because He created it.
SPEAKER_01: He is its creator.
SPEAKER_01: He immediately steps in and says, There is going to be a plan for redemption, and I'm going to bring a Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: And in the entire scripture of the Old Testament is God showing his plan where he brings about his Redeemer.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he shows us who the Redeemer is.
SPEAKER_01: In the book of Acts, we see the effect of the Redeemer as His church is created and as the gospel begins to expand.
SPEAKER_01: And in the next set of books from Romans all the way through Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2nd, and 3 John, we see the process of how we advance the gospel and how we respond to Him, the impact of salvation, the plan of redemption, how it works in our lives, how we walk with Him.
SPEAKER_01: And in the book of Revelation, we get God redeems His creation.
SPEAKER_01: He has redeemed it all.
SPEAKER_01: He has remade it.
SPEAKER_01: He is the creator, and we broke it, and He will redeem it and restore it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what the plan is, and that's what we see in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And what we understand is I must respond to participate in that plan of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's so important when John is giving his gospel of who Jesus is, he comes back and he says, In the beginning, the word was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_01: And he was there from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: Everything created was created by him, and nothing was created outside of him.
SPEAKER_01: And then the next verse, verse 4 says this in him is life.
SPEAKER_01: And his life was the light of men.
SPEAKER_01: It calls us to him.
SPEAKER_01: We must respond to the call of redemption.
SPEAKER_01: God is the authority as the creator.
SPEAKER_01: He has established the rules.
SPEAKER_01: To violate his rules is sin and it brings judgment and brokenness.
SPEAKER_01: But God loves you.
SPEAKER_01: He has a plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: He created redemption and he brought Jesus into the world, who lived a sinless life.
SPEAKER_01: And then voluntarily went to the cross with no judgment attached to his life.
SPEAKER_01: And there he died so that his death, with no judgment, no punishment attached to it, his death could become a substance.
SPEAKER_01: For our deaths, and his death could pay the price for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He took those sins to the cross, he died, he rose again, conquering death and sin, and now he offers us the opportunity to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: But it is on his terms.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, he is the authority, and we must respond to his authority.
SPEAKER_01: In order to be saved, I must confess that I am a sinner.
SPEAKER_01: I am a sinner, and I have violated God's authority as the creator God.
SPEAKER_01: I have broken his standards, and I cannot fix it.
SPEAKER_01: And then you realize that Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_01: There he paid the price for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: And salvation is coming to recognize that he is the God creator.
SPEAKER_01: He has the right to make the standards.
SPEAKER_01: I have violated his rules, and then understand the person of who he is, that he loved me so much.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus died for me on the cross and rose again.
SPEAKER_01: And my response to his authority is to confess my sin.
SPEAKER_01: I am a sinner, and I deserve to be punished.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus loved me more than anyone else that ever loved me, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I understand that.
SPEAKER_01: And I place my trust and my life and my faith and all of that I am in your hands.
SPEAKER_01: I take everything I've been, I am, and I ever will be, and I give it all to the Lord through Jesus and faith and what he did for me on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: There's not one piece of my life I hold back.
SPEAKER_01: It is all his.
SPEAKER_01: I have submitted myself to his change and transformation in me, and I realize I can't live according to that standard, but I have surrendered to the process of Jesus now living it in and through me, working in my life to change me, to grow me, to bring me in line deeper and deeper on a daily basis with who God is, and to give me the hope and promise to participate in the ultimate redemption and spend eternity with him forever.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation must be done on Jesus' terms because he is the creator.
SPEAKER_01: You must acknowledge that you are a sinner, that your sin must be punished.
SPEAKER_01: You must believe that Jesus, as the creator of God, has the right to step out of heaven and has the power as the author of life.
SPEAKER_01: In him is life, and there he created salvation for us.
SPEAKER_01: And then you come and you surrender your life to him as Lord and as Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, God will do more with your life than you could ever imagine.
SPEAKER_01: Because he is the creator God.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to bow your heads where we are this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In just a moment, I'm going to pray.
SPEAKER_01: God's people are going to stand and sing.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been watching online or by television, listen, we want you to know we have prayed for you and we pray for you, and we are grateful that you tune in, but we want you to know Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: As the creator God, He made you.
SPEAKER_01: And He created a plan of redemption for you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to invite you to trust Christ as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Contact us and let us know if there's any way we can help you in that journey.
SPEAKER_01: Pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: Walk with you to help you understand these things.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.