June 4, 2023
Pastor Gunnar Ledermann
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Genesis 1:1-2:3
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Mushrooms are edible, sometimes. You have to be careful with mushrooms because some are edible, and some are poisonous. When you eat the bad ones, you get sick and could die, but when you eat the good ones, you stay healthy and live. Learning whether something is good for you to eat or poisonous will save your life.
Learning whether something is spiritually good for you will save your life forever. The words from our New Testament reading from 2 Corinthians 13 were Paul’s final words to them. They are appropriate words for today as we are celebrating Trinity Sunday. Paul mentions each person of the Trinity as he closed his second letter with words of blessing and encouragement, 14 “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Paul closed his second letter to the Corinthians with these words because he had shared what was spiritually good for them, the truth. Much of Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians dealt with teaching by answering their questions and rebuking them or calling them out for sin with the goal of repentance and forgiveness. The Corinthians struggled to know what was true and had embraced many things that were harmful to their faith. Paul’s words were not always easy for them to hear. They had been fed many lies by their idolatrous society and were still living in it. The devil was hard at work among them too. Plus, each one had their own sinful nature constantly fighting against their faith. The only healing medicine for the Corinthians was the truth, the Word of God. Paul wrote extensively to the Corinthians providing them with a smorgasbord of God’s Word. Daily consumption of the truth would strengthen their faith in Jesus’ forgiveness and help them avoid poisonous lies, temptations and sins. After sharing the truth with them, Paul wrote, 11 “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”
Like the Corinthians, you are not surrounded by truth. You are surrounded by many lies claiming to be the truth and it is spiritually poisonous. To expose those poisonous lies and hear the truth, we need to go back to the beginning of the truth with the beginning of God’s Word. Our Old Testament reading for today from Genesis 1 and 2 literally goes back to the beginning. Genesis 1, begins with the words, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This sentence alone has been attacked in numerous ways, but now is not the time for a systematic attempt to counter all those arguments. It is so tempting to argue and poke holes in theories about the beginning, but getting at the reason for those attacks will provide us with the answer to all lies. These attacks and poisonous lies surround us because we lost the image of God. In Genesis 1, God tells us how he created mankind, 27 “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” The image of God had nothing to do with physical appearance. Instead, the image of God is righteousness and holiness, or being without sin, as we read in Ephesians 4, 24 “…created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” This image was lost when Adam and Eve sinned. In the place of righteousness and holiness, we are all now conceived and born to live evil, sinful lives spreading and consuming spiritual death.
Ingesting the spiritual poison around you means death. When God as our creator is replaced with the Big Bang theory, there is no afterlife, no absolute truth, no objective accountability, no wise and powerful being who orchestrated the universe in such a way to make humanity thrive on the earth. When God as the one who created the vast array of plant, flying, swimming and land species with the ability to reproduce “according to their kind” as is mentioned over and over in Genesis 1 is replaced, then you are left with radical notions of inorganic matter coming to life, replicating itself, improving through mutation and less complex things becoming more complex. When you reject God’s complementing male and female, you are left with confusion, loneliness, experiments and frustration. Among others, these lies culminate in the systematic destruction of the clear truths about God. Without these truths, you no longer have the one true God as testified to by Scripture. Instead, you have an edited version of God by the hands of sinful ignorant creatures, which no matter how appealing is still not real. You were no match for these lies and ones like them. On your own, your sinful soul hungers for lies and sees God as poison leading to eternity in hell.
God has always been what you need for life. God did not create you to be on your own. He created you to have a relationship with him, a good relationship. In our Old Testament reading from Genesis 1, we read, 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” God created mankind to be like him. He waited until the sixth and last day of creation after everything else had been made to make mankind. Everything else was put in place so that God could create human beings. You were created for meaningful enduring life. God wants you to live and not die, he wants you to live with him enjoying all his blessings, not separated from him in suffering. God has restored his gift of a good relationship, enduring life and his image, righteousness and holiness. God has done this work as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As the Father he chose you to be one of his people to live with him in heaven forever as we read in Ephesians 1, 3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” As the Son of God and Son of Man, Jesus suffered for your sins removing them and giving you his righteousness, the holy image of God so that he could bring you to live with God as we hear in 1 Peter 3, 18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” And the Holy Spirit separated you from the unbelieving world to believe Jesus saved you as we read in 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 … “saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth.” At the end of Genesis 1, God gave this response to his creation, 31 “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” God has restored you with his forgiveness and the gift of faith in Jesus. He now sees you as ‘very good’ again.
God is with you until you go to live with him in heaven. While we wait for heaven, we need to feed our souls what is good. In our Gospel reading from Matthew 28, we learn what is good:
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20
Jesus assures us that we are his disciples. In baptism, we have been washed clean of our sins and reborn holy and righteous. You are now identified with the name of God, the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You have life from him and with him forever. Your connection to him by faith remains strong with teaching the truth. We continue to teach one another all Jesus commanded us. We continue to teach repentance and forgiveness. We continue to teach all of God’s Word, the Old Testament which pointed ahead to Jesus and New Testament which records what Jesus did to save us. We remain confident of all of this because Jesus is still with us. Jesus is here with us now with all his grace, mercy, peace and power. Jesus’ spoke these words in Matthew 28 with the same power from Genesis 1 that in the beginning said, 3 … “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”
There are a variety of theories about the beginning, but only one is true. When you believe in the wrong ones, it is like feeding your soul a poisonous mushroom. The creation account in Genesis is nonnegotiable. God created the world and he created human beings in his image. When that image was lost and humanity was lost to lies, sin, death and hell, God did the work to save us. Just like God gets all the credit for the vast intricate universe, God also gets all the credit for restoring his image to us. God loves to create life, and he made you very good, perfect and without sin again through Jesus to live with him forever. Praise God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for giving you life. Praise him for the truth that God reveals his glory in his creation. Amen.
