Seven Truths about Creation
That Are Foundations for Our Lives

Part 2

03/06/2005

- More cubic yards of dirt are moved by earthworms every day than all our machines could move in a lifetime.

- Snowflakes are tiny things, but put enough of them together and they can bring a city to its knees.

- You could work out in a gym every day of your life and still not gain the relative strength of an ant (who can lift 50x its own weight).

- A single flare on our sun releases an energy roughly that of 1-billion hydrogen bombs.

Truth #4: Man Is the Crown of Creation

How are we created in God’s image?

Our Personality: mind, will, emotions

Do animals and insects think like we do? Do plants have feelings?

They respond to a built-in control we call instinct.

How are we different from animals, insects, or plants?

God thinks, we think. God decides, we decide. God feels, we feel.

Our Sexuality: created as male and female

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

What does it mean when the Bible says “male and female he created them?”

Our sexuality is actually part of what it means to be created in the image of God

- The world makes sexuality into just sex – Sexuality is merely physical.

- God made men and women very different - Our distinctiveness reflect God’s image.

- The root cause of gender confusion and sexual immorality is in not trusting that our greatest joy is in living out who God made us to be as men and women.

²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:26-28)

Our Morality: created as moral beings, with a moral consciousness

Does a dog know right form wrong?

You can train a dog to do what you tell it, but it has no moral conscience that it causes it to think “I shouldn’t be eating out of garbage cans, I need to get into a recovery program.”

Does a mouse that invades your house have a conscience?

It doesn’t lay awake at night wondering if it was right to steal that piece of cheese and agonize its place in the world.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:7)

So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. (Acts 24:16)

Our moral nature includes both freedom of choice and responsibility for our choices.

With freedom comes responsibility. When you get the keys to a car, you have freedom to go wherever you want, but you also have the responsibility to not get in an accident.

Our Spirituality: created with the ability to relate to God

⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! ¹⁰For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:9-11)

The relationship that Adam and Eve had with God was broken when they disobeyed him in the Garden of Eden. Romans 5 reminds us that this relationship was restored.

What feelings do you have when you focus your thoughts on the truth that mankind is created in God’s image?

Truth #5: God Finished the Job

Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. (Genesis 2:1)

God’s work was finished from the time he made the world. (Hebrews 4:3)

- The universe is not some vast unfinished symphony.

- This world and universe are not works in progress.

- The universe is a finished work of creation that has been marred by the presence of sin.

What’s the difference between something that is unfinished and something that is marred or worn down?

- Something that is unfinished is like a house that only has the frame completed.

- Something that is marred is like a house that has been neglected. It needs to be restored.

- We don’t need to make a new world or new self – we cannot improve on God’s original creation. Instead we need to bring the world back to what it was originally, including our relationship with God.

Truth #6: God Rested on the Seventh Day

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. (Genesis 2:2-3)

Why did God rest?

To give us an example to follow

Work and get everything done during six days each week, but the seventh day is a day of rest to honor the Lord your God… The reason is that in six days the Lord made everything – the sky, the earth, the sea, and everything in them. On the seventh day he rested. (Exodus 20:9-11)

- Humans are designed to rest. Illustration: If everyone plays through the rests in orchestra, it will sound like noise.

- Does the Bible tell us how we should rest? What should we do on a Sabbath?

To teach us his plan for the ages

There remains, then a Sabbath – rest for people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter into that rest. (Hebrews 4:9-11)

- Spiritually we need to “enter God’s rest” – our relationship with God is not found in our works, but in trusting and resting in his work in our lives.

- Does “rest” mean that we don’t do anything? It takes great effort of heart and faith to sotp trusting in your work and to trust in God’s work in you.

How well are you doing at following God’s example to rest? What are one or two practical things that you could do to better follow his example?

Truth #7: God Now Sustains All That He Made

He existed before everything else began, and he holds all creation together. (Colossians 1:17)

Who fathers the drops of drew? (Job 38:28)

God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne. (Psalm 47:8)

- The word used for God’s continuing and active work in holding creation together is the “providence” of God.

- Illustration: Plastic globe that didn’t come with glue – you are holding the globe together.

- It’s not your parents that sustain you – your parents are part of the supply lines that God is giving you to sustain you right now.

Acting on the Truth: How to Praise God as Your Creator

“Seeing creation as an expression of your love…”

He made the sun and the moon. His love continues forever. He made the sun to rule the day. His love continues forever. He made the moon and stars to rule the night. His love continues forever… He gives food to every living creature. His love continues forever. (Psalm 136:7-9, 25)

“I kneel before you in humility…”

Come, kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God. We are his sheep, and he is our Shepherd. Oh, that you would hear him calling you today and come to him! (Psalm 95:6-7)

“praising you for this day…”

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)