God The Father

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We are starting a new series. What it really means, in the end, is believe. We believe. So, from this text, we're going to bring out a number of points, and then tie them into a number of others later on in the Scriptures, because we always want to have Scripture interpret Scripture. But we're going to look at this phrase, first of all, of, It was good. Then we're going to look at the phrase, Let us make man in our image. Anything interesting in that phrase that you find? And then, finally, we're going to look at, just overall, the goodness of the Father, as the Creed says. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth. We have a good, good Father. So, first of all, It was good. Now, Genesis simply said that God made whatever God made was good. In fact, it says it time and time again throughout the entire chapter of Genesis, chapter 1 into chapter 2, and It was good. It was very good. It was good so often, I think it occurs like 11 times in this chapter, that it says God made what was good, habitable, life-giving. Good means productive, in harmony with God as He intended it to be. In fact, what we have in Genesis 1, when you read through it, it's so different, by the way, from other creation stories that we have in the ancient Near East. It's so different from other philosophical backgrounds. We sometimes don't see it. We just read through it and go like, OK, that's the way it is. We don't know why this stands out so differently. What does it mean that we have God, a Father, who creates things that are good? In fact, Genesis 1 comes across with these six days, as a number of commentators have said, as the dedication of a temple. That God is creating this material universe to be a place where His glory, that He actually dwells, He will be at home in this world and He will be at home with us. That was His intent with this orderliness, this unitary purpose in creating it. And this is what He says about how He has made it for us in Genesis 1, 29 to 31. We had read this and He said, Behold, I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree. You shall have them for food. And at the end of this passage, it says, And God saw everything He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and was morning. The sixth day, I don't know. I sometimes overlook it. Maybe you do, too. The abundance we have in this world. Just the amazing abundance. And yes, we have overexploited the oceans and we have done all sorts of things to this earth that we have hoarded and scraped and scrapped and treated it. Not necessarily the way God intended it. And yet there is still an abundance. Have you ever thought of that? The reality today is that there are about eight billion people in this world and there is enough to go around. More than enough. And the problems that we are having with scarcity or with lack that certain people lack is not because there isn't enough to go around. It's the fact that it's been hoarded and or exploited and or we have conflicts and wars that are causing the issues. But there's more than enough to go around yet, even to this day. God does not make a world where you had to scrape by. I had to scrape by and there was hardly enough, barely to get along. Made a world that was habitable for you and where we can flourish. And that has been his intent. Now, believe it or not, there are some faith traditions that do not quite see this material world as that good. In fact, they say it exists and it's here, but it's not the reality we should be focused on. That it's just temporary. It's what we're stuck in right now. The Greco Roman world believed we were spirits trapped in this material world. And someday, as Socrates said, I'm going to remove this mortal coil and fly away like a swan and be spiritual again. And that was the whole goal. The whole goal was to say, yeah, this creation thing. Not so good. Not the Bible. Not the Bible at all. Now, I'm glad there are a number of faith traditions that look and see there's a spiritual dimension to reality, but they're missing. I think the point of how God purposefully created this world for our good and it is to be good, a physical creation. It's not a temporary experiment that God starts in Genesis and someday he's going to just say, let's stop that and start something new. No, he is in Revelation. We see it's the renewal of all of creation that happens and heaven and earth come together. We don't see it stopped. And now we're going to enter into some new spiritual realm. So we have one unified story from beginning to end. God, when he makes something, he's committed to it. He has made this world. He has made you. He is committed to you. He is covenanted with you. He's going to be there for you all throughout. And that's what we find in all of the propheti...