Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God create the heaven and the earth
While I may not know you, I may know the first question you ever asked. Now, if not the first question you asked, it is certainly the first question as to importance. The question is, “Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here?” If that sounds like three different questions to you, it is not. It is one question with one answer. If you have the answer to one, you have the answer to all three. The question is simply, “What is the beginning of my life? Where did I come from? Why am I here?” The answer is God.
Now, if you do not answer the first question, it will be the last question you have. When you come to the end of life, you will still be searching for an answer. This question has been a search of the ancient Greeks, the people before them, and the podcast yesterday. The question is the big question in life. Where did all of this come from? Where did I come from?
Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God.” Those are perhaps the most profound words in all the Word of God. The long and short of it is that you cannot know yourself until you know God. People are confused about what they are, who they are, and why they are here, and they will continue to be confused until they know God.
“In the beginning God created.” Notice three things. One, there is a beginning. The verse says, “In the beginning.” This is not the hard part. The fact is, everyone knows there has to be a beginning. Whether you think it is some explosion, an accident over time, that there is an unknown higher power to whom you have no obligation, or that there is a God Who is named, personal, and knows and cares about you, there is a beginning.
The hard part is about before the beginning. If you believe in some form of evolution, the question you have at some point, which has no answer, is, “Where did this come from?” Well, there were gases. Where did that come from? Well, there was this. Where did that come from? This can go on and on. Where did it come from? The answer is something so amazing and so powerful that what else can you call it other than God. You may call it a chance in time, but you are talking about forces that are far more powerful than anything you have ever seen in your entire life. So, there had to be a beginning.
Second, there is a God. You can name Him and He is a personal God. A summation of Genesis 1 might be something like this, “God said. It was so. It was good.” There is a God. He is a God Who is named and is personal. Again, everyone at some point believes in some force so great and mighty they have never seen anything like it. What is that if not God? And what is that if not faith in such a God?
There is a beginning. There is a God. Third, this God is the Creator. That is the assertion of the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” He is the Creator. God created a cosmos not a chaos. What we have without purpose is chaos. What we have with purpose is creation, and we are creatures made by God. When we acknowledge that, it gives us both purpose and a sense of provision. Verse 28 says, “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” That is totally politically incorrect, but it is totally correct. It is accurate and right. Be fruitful, replenish, multiply, subdue, have dominion. We are not tyrants of this globe, but we are not children of the globe. We are stewards of what God has given.
So, we have purpose, and verse 29 says, “Behold, I have given you.” We have purpose and provision from God because there is a God. Now, the upshot is simply this: live today as if you had answered the first question. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? If you have not answered that first question, let me encourage you that there is a God and you can know Him. You can know Him through His Son Jesus Christ. If you have trusted the Lord Jesus, then live today as if you had answered the first question because indeed you have.
When it comes to politics, don’t take God out of the world that He created. There is not a movement or party, no matter how grand, conservative, or whatever you think is virtuous, that is the answer to our need without a God. Religion is just a bunch of liturgy without a person if there is no God. There are social interactions with other people. How do you treat them, account for them, and take them? The fact is, the way to understand politics, religion, and our social life is to acknowledge that there is a God, that He is greater than we are, that He is the Creator of us, and that we are made in the image of God.
Years ago, there was a seminary professor whose little boy heard in Sunday School about Jonah and the big fish. The little guy was skeptical. He said, “I don’t believe that a great fish swallowed a man.” His dad wisely asked, “Well, is there a God?” The boy said, “Yes.” The dad said, “If there is a God, do you think He is great enough to create a sea?” Again, the boy replied, “Yes.” The dad continued, “If there is a God and He created a sea, could He create a great fish?” The boy answered, “Yes.” The dad asked, “If there is a God Who could create a sea and a great fish, don’t you think He could create a great fish that could swallow a man?” The little boy replied, “Well, if you are going to put God into it, I guess I can believe it.”
The only real miracle is God. The only thing that is more miraculous than God is what it would take if there were no God. Once you accept God, there is nothing you read of in the Bible that is impossible. Without God, life is meaningless. With God, all things are possible and the universe can make sense. So, when it comes to purpose, provision, and direction in life, you cannot know yourself until you know God. God has revealed Himself in His creation and His word.