Over the next few weeks I’m looking to put out some summaries from chapters of a book I’m writing for those starting out in their Christian faith. If you’re new to GracePoint this’ll be a great opportunity for you to find out what we believe as a Christian community. If you’re just starting out in your new found Christian faith, this’ll be an opportunity for you to establish a firm Christian foundation. If you consider yourself a mature Christian, this’ll be a great opportunity for you to strengthen your foundation.
We’re starting this week with what God reveals about himself in the Bible. In speaking about God, I’ve often heard people say, ‘I’d like to think of God as … (you fill in the blank)’, as if we could decide what we’d like to believe about God. I find it humorous when I hear people say that, because it assumes that they’re greater than God and able to choose what they’d like to believe about God. As Christians we believe that God reveals himself to us in the Bible (2 Tim.3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21). So at GracePoint we’re first and foremost Bible believing Christians. For Christians the Bible is our ultimate and final authority on all matters of faith, life and doctrine. And when we turn to the Bible we discover that God firstly reveals himself to us as our creator.
We discover that God is the creator of all things. We exist because God made us, and our world exists because God made it. The opening verses of the first book of the Bible in Genesis 1 tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and all life that exists.
Gen. 1:1-2 1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
And God we’re told is not a created being with a beginning and an end like his creation. God is eternal having existed in eternity before the creation of the world (Ps.90:2; Ps.102:12, 24-27; Rev.1:4, 8). There was never a time when God did not exist. In fact Rev.4:11 tells us that as our creator God alone is therefore worthy of our worship, to be glorified, honored and praised because he alone created all things, and by his will they were created and have their being.
What we need to realize is that everything in creation bears the mark of its creator, made by him and for him. Everything in creation was made by God and to return glory to God. It’s the reason why we also read in other parts of the Bible that the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands (Ps.19:1). Creation declares God’s glory. Like the brilliance of a diamond radiating light from every angle, creation sets forth and gives expression to God’s perfection in all the radiance of his beauty, power, majesty and greatness.
It’s another way of saying that everything we enjoy in creation is a reflection of the creator who made it: a reflection of his beauty, his power, his majesty and his greatness. When you observe the beauty of a sunset against the backdrop of the red Simpson desert, your experience of its beauty tells you something of the beauty of the creator, and how much greater that must be. When you stand on the edge of a cliff overlooking Kakadu National Park and are struck by a sense of its majesty, your experience of majesty tells you something of the majesty of the creator, and how much greater that must be.
Everything in creation bears the mark of its creator. Everything was made by him and for him, to declare his glory. Everything in creation serves as a pointer back to God our creator reflecting his glory in all the perfection of his beauty, power, majesty and greatness. And so if we experience such beauty, power, majesty and greatness in creation, imagine how much greater is God our creator in beauty, power, majesty and greatness.
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