Gospel FoundationsSample

God Creates

In the beginning… these three words serve as a launching pad. They set the stage for the story of everything that comes next. They serve as the foundation for all we know, experience, love, and understand. And yet, these three words lose their meaning without the next word we find in Scripture: In the beginning, God…

The Bible is a God-centered book. We have been given Scripture so that we might know God. That means when we read Scripture, we should focus primarily on what we can learn, love, and embrace about God and His Son, Jesus. The Bible begins with a simple statement of God’s power and work. 

The next word is God’s first action: In the beginning, God created…

We use the word create when we cause something to come into being, but we always form something out of other things that previously existed. We create music using notes, art out of paints and a canvas, books from words, language, paper, and binding. 

God, however, created from nothing. Everything in existence came to be because of Him—rocks, trees, the very air we breathe. Not only that, but intangible realities such as courage, love, and laughter come from Him as well. All of this came from the heart of God at the beginning. 

So this is where our story begins—with nothing. Nothing except God, and then came much, much more. God was there at the beginning of the storyline of Scripture—and so was the Son of God, which the New Testament makes explicit: The Son is before all things and He created all things (Col. 1:16-17). 

Jesus is the perfect image of the invisible God, the only One who rules wisely over creation, perfectly relates to God and others, and through His work, earns our everlasting rest. By the Son, for the Son, and through the Son, all things exist and hold together.