Designed by God

A World Designed by God

Genesis 1:1-19, 26-28

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God 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 an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 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. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

9 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. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. 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 expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

….

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

In 1983 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn won the philanthropic Templeton award for his writings and devastating critiques of Russian Communism. The Soviet Union was responsible for some of the greatest atrocities of the twentieth century.

In Solzhenitsyn’s address for the Templeton award, he offered his summary explanation for why all the horrors of Soviet communism came to pass. He said simply, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”

It is a simple and pointed critique to a repressive philosophy of yesterday, and yet his critique is just as relevant for today’s society.

Rod Dreher said of Solzhenitsyn's statement: “This answer is also a valid explanation for the crisis enveloping the West today, including the widespread falling away from faith, the disintegration of the family, a loss of communal purpose, erotomania, erasing the boundaries between male and female, and a general spirit of demonic destruction that denies the sacredness of human life. Because men have forgotten God, they have also forgotten man; that's why all this has happened.” Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), p. 11.

Today we are starting a series called Blessed to Be a Blessing, in which we look at God’s design for people and how that plays out in the traditional spheres of human life: family, church, and state. There is a movement going through our time that seeks to undermine the word of God and God’s intent for people, and if we do not speak about it, we are all susceptible to it.

While many in the world seek power in order to maintain power, and are willing to destroy others to achieve their goals, Scripture calls us to see the God who uses his power to bless others. We are to be like him and use our power to bring flourishing to the world. That is a fundamental shift from the atrocities committed by others.

Given the pull of culture, this series is always relevant. But we are coming into a political season and the need to address these seems palpable. Now you may say the church should not get political. I agree with that to some degree. I am much more interested in preaching the gospel than preaching on how you should vote, but if you are a believer you are called to shape the world in ways that honor God. But secondly, I would also say the problem is, in the words of Josh Howerton, “It's not that the church is becoming more political, it’s that politics are becoming more religious.” Politics are defining marriage, they are defining which faiths can and cannot work in certain places, and there is a movement coming from many angles that is seeking to eradicate Christianity.

We need to be faithful in this situation. We need to know how to speak to these issues. We need to know how to push back on the darkness.

Genesis 1 explains to us how God created and designed the world to be and to work. If we are going to be faithful to God, we need to understand this passage and its continuing relevance to our daily lives.

The world is designed by God; therefore, we need to look to him in everything, and as we do that we will experience blessing and be able to share that with others.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

Genesis doesn't begin with an argument for God's existence. It doesn't say, “Here are five reasons you should believe that God exists.” It simply begins with God.

Before there was a universe, there was God.

Before there was time, there was God.

Before there was humanity, there was God.

Before there was anything else, God was… and he still is.

And that matters because where you begin determines where you end. “God created” is not merely a statement about God's existence. It is the starting point for understanding everything else.

Think about how popular origin stories have become, particularly in superhero movies. We want to know where a person came from because their origin helps explain who they are. Peter Parker is the ordinary, unassuming teenager who is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes Spider-Man. Bruce Wayne is the orphan whose parents are murdered, and that shapes his desire for justice and vengeance. Origin and purpose go together.

Genesis 1 is the origin story of everything. If you want to understand who you are and how you should live, you have to start with the One who was there in the beginning.

God created. It all began with him. Without him there is nothing.

Genesis doesn't say God discovered the universe or simply rearranged materials that already existed. It says, “God created.” He brought it forth.

So if we want to know how to live, we begin by looking to the Creator. Your understanding of origins shapes how you understand everything: human identity, morality, purpose, meaning, and authority.

This is the starting point to understand everything. Some people will deny this starting point. If you do not start in the right place, everything else will be off. If a runner does not stand in the right place to start the race, it jeopardizes everything else he does.

So also with God. If God created all things, and we refuse or are unwilling to begin with him at the center of all we do and seek to understand, then we are going to be off on everything else that we do. He stands at the center of understanding ourselves, others, the way the world works, school, government, and everything else that needs to be understood in relation to who he is and what he calls us to do.

Lord Acton: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” People throw off God and then they are free to do whatever they want. They have nothing to interfere with or judge their actions. It happens with sex, power, government.

God is the one we should look to. He should define what we do and don’t do. There is a clear move today to move God out of the center of politics. We should be those saying it won't work. You can't do that. That's not wise or good. It's been done before and it didn’t go well. His word speaks to Godless Socialism.

In short, it is the removal of God and the imparting of Godlike authority to the state. We see a clear move of this in our day. People think the government will solve all their problems, and so they want to give it power over everything.

Socialism is not just an economic theory or labor theory, but the “embodiment of atheism” (Dostoevsky). Even Lenin said, “Atheism without Marxism is incomplete and inconsistent.” The state runs everything, controls everything, has authority over all things. Religion is removed and so there is unchecked power. Not even God can tell them what to do and not do.

When the state runs everything, it runs religion, and that means you get the state's gospel rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ. Marxism may have been in the shadows in previous years, but there is no hiding it today. You need to understand its origin and end.

John Adams, the founder of our nation, said, “The general principles upon which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity” (Howerton interview with Barton). We need that attitude today. Don't be silenced. Have a biblical understanding of issues and how God’s word addresses them.

Genesis 1 doesn't just tell us that God created. It tells how God created. Again and again, God brings order and distinction to what was formless and empty.

He separates light from darkness, the waters from the waters, the sea from the dry land.

He creates vegetation according to its kinds.

He creates animals according to their kinds.

And he creates humanity as male and female.

There is tremendous diversity in creation, but that diversity isn't random. God creates a world of distinctions, structures, boundaries, and patterns. These are what give the world order and beauty and goodness. Over and over again, God gives a creative decree and sees that the effect is good. He creates according to kinds. He works six days and rests, making a creational framework that is to continue.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato developed an idea he called the Forms—the idea that things in the world participate in a particular pattern or form that defines what they are. While Plato's philosophy is not the same as the biblical doctrine of creation, his illustration can help us see something about the world around us.

Take an acorn. You can plant an acorn in the ground, and over time it becomes an oak tree. You don't have to teach the acorn how to become an oak. You don't have to tell it, “Try to be an oak tree.” The pattern for what it is going to become is already somehow present within it.

The acorn develops according to its nature. An acorn doesn't become a pine tree because it suddenly decides that's what it wants to be. It flourishes by becoming what it was designed to become.

And that's an important biblical principle. God's creation has a design, and things flourish when they live according to that design.

A fish flourishes in water. A bird flourishes in the air. An oak tree flourishes by growing according to its nature. And human beings flourish when we live according to the nature and purpose God gave us.

This challenges our modern understanding of freedom. People speak of freedom as though they can be whatever they want. But Genesis gives us a different picture. Freedom isn't escaping God's design; freedom is flourishing within God's design.

God's boundaries aren't arbitrary. They correspond to the way he made the world. That's why throughout Scripture God gives patterns for marriage, family, sexuality, work, worship, government, relationships, and morality.

He's not simply giving us a list of restrictions. He's teaching us how the world he created is meant to work.

People do not become animals. Men cannot become women. We have a form, a DNA that programs them and their bodies to develop certain ways.

Do these things get complicated? Yes, sin complicates everything. But it doesn’t mean that structure does not still exist.

This helps us embrace distinctions and difference. God creates people in his image and creates male and female. There is equality, but distinction. Today people only want equality and no distinction.

We are made in the image of the triune God. Each member of the Trinity is fully God and yet distinct and different. Different persons and different roles. They are not all identical. There is unity and distinction in the Trinity. The same is true of people who are male and female.

Difference does not mean inequality. There is a move to make things the same—make people into a colorless, distinctionless blob in which everyone is becoming whatever they want. Understanding our form and structure is key to honoring God.

People can have equal dignity and real distinctions.

Differences aren't something we need to erase. They are part of the created order God called good. God made two great lights to govern creation, the greater to govern the day, the lesser to govern the night. Both with a good purpose. Both with distinction.

Human beings are different from everything else God has made. We are not merely another species in the animal kingdom. People distinctly bear the image of God.

Genesis reaches its climax with the creation of humanity:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’” — Genesis 1:26

This gives dignity to all people. If every human being is made in God's image, then every human being possesses inherent dignity.

The homeless man on the street bears the image of God.

Your political enemy bears the image of God.

While we may see extremists calling for the termination of their enemies, this is unacceptable for the Christian because we believe such acts would trounce the image of God that should be valued. No matter how deformed and repressed the image of God may be in someone, we desire to see it realized and restored to its fullness. People have life in God.

This also means the unborn baby bears the image of God. They should be advocated for. Abortion is wrong because it destroys a living, growing image bearer of God. Since 1970, over 60 million babies have been killed. It is not healthcare, no matter which political party says that.

Abortions are now being legalized up to the moment of birth. And it shouldn’t be a surprise to see in the news a situation where a mother, Lindsay Clancy, strangles and kills her three children, ages 5, 3, and eight months, and then tries to kill herself. It is tragic. And it is wrong.

We need to stand up for justice to the unborn.

And if you have participated in abortion, know that it is wrong, but also know that God did not terminate you because of your mistakes. He has shown you mercy and given you time to receive his forgiveness, healing, and restoration that no medical clinic can offer. He offers you complete healing and salvation.

Dignity comes from your Creator, and because every person bears God's image, every person has value—including the unborn and the elderly, the powerful and the powerless, the wealthy and the poor, the person who agrees with you and the one who disagrees.

A new thing that will challenge the dignity of people in our country is Islam. It sees no value to those who do not believe in its message. Islam is growing fast due to immigration or the desire of other nations to proselytize our country. It is a Christian heresy that finds its fulfillment in submission through political conquest. It conquers by force and oppression. For centuries Western countries have fought to keep it out, but it has been let in today because of foolish practices of tolerance; it is rapidly entering Christian countries. Islam is not content to just be accepted at the table. They seek political power to enforce belief and its laws. Many are seeking after political positions and have already achieved them. It may not be the desire of every Muslim to kill the infidel, but it is the clear teaching of the Koran and the clear history of Islam.

We need to understand how we show them the love of Christ, but also protect ourselves from their evil intent. Leaders are saying the issue of Islam will be for the next generation what the LGBTQ issues were for the last generation. We need Christians seeking positions of influence in their neighborhoods, cities, nations, etc.

Here is a quote on Islam:

“The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike by fraud or by force.” John Quincy Adams, 1830.

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over…the earth.’” Gen 1:26

God blesses and empowers people for multiplication and dominion. He blesses them to get married, have kids, and shape creation. God blesses them to do these things. It is their purpose. God, family, marriage, work—all are disparaged today by people wanting to remove the Christian foundation of our nation.

A few years ago, I heard a clip of Charlie Kirk talking about the blessing of getting a job, owning a home, and having a family as something every man wants. Now I love my kids and family, but when I first heard that, it felt overly simplistic. I was like, no, there is more. I want to travel Europe, sky dive, get a sports car. I then thought about it and felt like I had been duped by something. This is what I dreamed of when I was little: having a beautiful wife, a family, a place of our own.

I'm not saying there are not hardships and challenges and disappointments in this. But what I am saying is this is something to aspire to. It's something to pursue and go after. God has put this in us as a basic and fundamental desire and pursuit.

Unfortunately, it’s looked down upon today. Too many people are standing around rejecting marriage, rejecting kids, rejecting work, and then they are depressed they lack purpose. You have rejected some of the main things God has given to you. Don’t do that. Marriage is so good, so good. Kids are good. Work is good. It is all incredibly hard and yet deeply fulfilling.

God empowers them for dominion—work. To have dominion means that God entrusts something to you. We are given authority over creation, but it isn't our creation. We are stewards of what belongs to God.

That means dominion is both a privilege and a responsibility. We get to cultivate the earth, build families, create businesses, develop communities, pursue knowledge, make art, establish institutions, and bring order and beauty into the world.

What is your example of having dominion? In verse 26 the command to have dominion is given. People bear his image and are to work. You have 25 verses before this of God creating, of him working,

of him bringing light to darkness,

order to the chaotic,

form to the formless,

life to what was dead.

Because of God’s dominion the world is teeming with life. The world has a realm of chaos and darkness, but through his work it is reaching its fullness.

God blesses his people to have dominion, to shape a portion of the world. Our work is to look like his work in which it results in the flourishing of other people. When you have governments who oppress and control people for their own advantage, that is evil.

Our dominion should therefore reflect his character.

Where there is darkness, bring light.

Where there is disorder, bring order.

Where there is death, protect and cultivate life.

God's people are called to take on the darkness. This is especially important in a world where competing visions of humanity are constantly being presented to us.

Human beings are not created to be oppressed, nor are they created merely to pursue themselves. They are created to exercise responsible dominion under God.

And that means Christians shouldn't retreat from a dark world.

There is a darkness in the world today that is seeking to destroy: destroy the world as originated in God, destroy the blessed structure God has given, destroy the image bearers of God, and destroy God-honoring dominion.

We find rest in seeing that God is working in the world. This is what gives us hope and confidence. Genesis tells us God is bringing his plan about and the darkness cannot resist. God is working in the world. He will send his Son into the world to destroy the darkness and bring life, and bring it to the full.

We need to make sure we avoid a Christless conservatism. To many, the conservative right feels like the only place you can talk about the Christian faith. But it is fully possible to be in agreement with people about political issues and creational structures, but lack a true relationship with God. They have the form but no love, light but no heat. They are seeking to preserve their way of life, but not the gospel of Jesus Christ. That too is a travesty.

We can't be content with the passing of laws or electing of officials. We want people to know the Lord who created the laws, and more than law, gave us the embodiment of love, of knowledge, and of truth in the sending of his Son Jesus Christ.

Our hope is in the eternal King of all things. God is overcoming the darkness and chaos of the world and establishing his perfect kingdom of rest. That is happening no matter who gets elected. That is where our hope is at. The one who created the world is the only one who can redeem the world. All have turned away from him and merit his punishment, but his love and mercy triumph in the sending of his Son. This gives us solid ground for our feet.