Sermon Tone Analysis

God’s Glory in Creation

The Glory of God is shown throughout the world whether in the Mountains, Oceans, or in the marvels of mankind.

Everywhere we look we can see God’s Glory.

Today we will look at 3 key aspects of Creation and how they display the Glory of God.

The first will be in the creation of our Earth.

Second we will explore the Glory of God in the creation of man, and lastly we will explore the Glory of God as displayed in his reconciliation of man.

Today we will specifically look at these areas of creation through the lens of Christ.

All things should be studied, spoken, and lived with Christ in the center.

Colossians 1:15-20

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church.

He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

See, the entire creation through today and through the time that God will call us home is all meant to Glorify God and to do so through His son Jesus Christ.

There is no other lens that is necessary to look through to find the meaning of why we are here, why things happen, and what our response should be.

Let’s begin today's journey with God’s Glory in the creating of Earth.

God’s Glory in Earth’s Creation

Have you ever heard of Hermenutics?

Art you are not allowed to answer this.

Hermenutics is the set of rules that we follow when interpreting scripture.

Now there are a lot of rules when interpreting scripture but those rules all lead to the same outcome.

The goal is to find the singular authorial meaning of a passage of Scripture.

It is to be understood that the Scriptures and more specifically the letters in the New Testament are written by the author with a purpose and a meaning.

Colossians was written by Paul and while Paul neither established the church at Colosse nor visited the church, he wrote this letter because he was troubled by the information he was getting from the believers.

The church at Colosse was a young church and false teaching was being spread through the church.

A teaching that we now know a Gnosticism or the idea that an understanding of God was only possible through higher wisdom.

The people were being told that if they wanted to have a relationship with God that they had to be higher educated and if they were not that they did not have a true relationship with God.

Sounds eerily familiar to what we hear today that you can gain enough knowledge to be closer to God.

Just as Paul is going to tell the believers in Colosse I am going to tell you today.

Knowledge as gained by man will do nothing to save your soul.

There is one thing that you must know and that must be the central aspect of your Salvation and that is, Jesus Christ is the Son of God, walked this earth as a pure and spotless man, died on the cross as an atonement for my sin and yours, and three days later was raised from the dead and is living and interceding for us as we speak.

You believe in this and you believe that you are a sinner and apart from Christ you have no ability to enter the kingdom of heaven , then as we are told in Romans my friend you are saved.

While it may help you to have a better understanding of the history of our faith, or be able to answer questions when challenged if your answers do not circle back to the fact that Christ died for us then it is the wrong answer.

In this passage of Scripture Paul is placing Christ right back where He must be in all of our lives, in the center.

Paul makes it clear to the believers that Christ is the Son of God and that through Him and for Him all things were made.

Pretty amazing right?

This means lets take a look back at Genesis 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.

In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

Not the big bang, not some cosmic anomaly that they will never be able to explain, but plain and simple, God spoke it and it happened and I believe it.

But the greater part of this scripture is that Jesus was there.

In the beginning all things were created by Jesus and for Jesus.

The earth was created with a purpose to bring Glory and Honor to God and to magnify the name of Jesus.

Everything we see is there to bring Honor to his Name.

Men, have you ever tried to surprise your wife with something amazing?

Let me tell you about how my Christmas works every year.

My wife spends 6 months preparing for the kids Christmas and mine, making sure we have everything we need.

She does however ensure that she does not get herself anything.

I’m pretty sure it is something that she does because she knows how this stirs up a flurry of anxiety for me.

You see when she does not tell me what she wants I am left to wonder, is what i’m getting her what she wants or should I just give her money and let her pick something?

But, then I am thinking, no this is a challenge she wants to know if I really care and money is not going to say that.

So then I get these “wonderful” ideas of what she would want.

Thankfully there have been decades of stupid men who gladly share their horror stories, so I avoid all cleaning products.

But then I find the perfect gift.

I purchase the gift, make sure it is delivered to my office so she wont get it early, sneak it home and wrap it.

Finally Christmas is here and I give her the gift.

She opens it and she loves it but I can tell something isn’t right.

So after the 30 minute you don’t like it conversation she admits to me that she knew what she was getting and had to fake being surprised.

Why? all because I used the debit card.

All this planning and she already knew.

There is no surprising my wife.

This is the same with God, there is no surprising God.

This life is not some random steps that just happen and the creation and redemption of man was not God’s plan B. He knew from the beginning how his creation would act and enacted a plan from before the earth was created.

Since this is true and we know it to be biblically sound.

How do we know this?

Ephesians 1:4

4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love

The Creation of the earth was the beginning of the Glory of God being shown.

His glorious plan set in motion to rescue a creation that while searching for self satisfaction would ensure self destruction.

The Creation of God cries out His glory.

Creation is eagerly waiting for the return of God as it understands its place in His glorious plan.

Romans 8:19

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies

You see the creation of the Earth had a purpose and the earth is waiting for the return of God.

The earth was subjected to our corruption in God’s plan to reconcile us to Himself.

Creation celebrates the Glory of God and is the first step in God’s glorious plan.

Creation worships the name of Jesus and in the absence of our praise His earthly creations cry out His name.

Luke 19:40

 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Creation even now worships the name of Jesus because it was created by Him and for Him and is held together by Him.

But not only does the Earth await His return the Universe declares His Glory

God’s Glory in the Universe

God created the Heavens and the Earth and after creating every aspect of our Universe and our Earth God saw that all He had created was good.

On the 6th day God created man.

Genesis 1:26-27

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.

I want to be very straightforward today, on the sixth day God created man and woman and He created us in His own image.

There was no mistake when God created man and woman and created them differently with aspects of His personality and physicality embedded in their DNA.

I don’t use the phrase we are in a time where things are getting worse because in all honesty from the time Adam and Eve sinned mankind has spent the entirety of their time trying to do life apart from God and His will.