The following is a sermon manuscript, preached on January 8, 2023, at Foundation Reformed Church in Quakertown, PA.

Establishing a Christological Worldview Part 1:

Christ Has Established Reality

Good morning, Brothers and Sisters, I want to express my gratitude to you and the Elders for the opportunity to spend this month with you in God’s Holy Word. I surrendered to Gospel Ministry when I was in High School and then spent 11 years in the USN in Nuclear Power Plants on Submarines and in Training Facilities.  Then, I acquired an Undergraduate Degree in Biblical Studies and now I am training for Pastoral Ministry at Westminster Theological Seminary.  I am excited to get to know you too, so please do catch me around, before or after service.  

It is my heart to see Jesus Christ Glorified through His Holy Word, so let us turn our attention to the preaching hour now, by asking God to reveal His Word to us in the demonstration of Power by His Holy Spirit. 

Introduction

Who in here uses Snapchat, Instagram, or plays Call of Duty?  Who has a Facebook and uses it regularly?  What do all these have in common? They exist in Virtual Reality.  You only see what you want to see or share what you want others to see…  It is a partial picture, and it’s not real.  We, as humans, have a natural desire to live in a false reality, or in a false interpretation of that reality.  We also tend to bend reality to suit ourselves, placing us at the center of our domain.  Have you ever told someone that the world does not revolve around them?  It is natural for us to become self-absorbed in our own created false realities.  The point is we cannot trust our own derived reality.  So how do we know what reality is?  God defines our reality through the creation events!  This morning it will be our aim to look into the creation narrative to see how God’s actions establish the reality of the world through Presupposition, Pattern, Purpose, Personal Interaction, and Pleasure.  The right understanding of the Reality of Creation is foundational to thinking Biblically or Christologically.  So, let’s take a look at these aspects of the creation account so that we might have a God-honoring understanding of Reality.  

Presupposition (Genesis 1:1-2) 

The creation account beings with an explanation of how what you observe today came into being.  Doesn’t this strike you as odd?  There is no introduction to God, the text just starts off by saying “In the Beginning, God created.”  The creation account starts with an understanding that God is and does.  The Great “I AM” as disclosed to Moses does not need an introduction because none would do Him justice.  Therefore, He acts so that He may be known.  The presupposition is that God is and God does.  I had a professor who would say, “God can do what He jolly well pleases.”  This is God being Himself.  He needs no introduction formally because to not believe that He exists is erroneous.  So, God does not waste His time in explaining who He is, He just shows us through the creation.  In other words, a right understanding of reality presupposes or assumes that God exists and created all these things.  The Nicene Creed states that “God created all things visible and invisible.”  In order to have a right reality, you must understand that everything was created by one intelligent being, God.  

John, the Apostle, clarifies for us how creation was created (John 1:1-3,14).  John illustrates that Jesus Christ created all things and that he has always existed.  John shows us that God expressed in His Word is His Son, Jesus, who made all things.

Why is this important in our everyday lives?  The culture will tell us to deny the idea that an intelligent, supreme, personal, creator created all things.  This is because the world does not know God, since they suppress the truth of God in their unrighteousness.  Any projection of a creation without God as creator is unbelief and demands repentance.  This is God’s world and we are blessed to live in it.  To understand that reality has a creator, God, is to understand the reality that God has established is according to His Divine Wisdom.   This presupposition is a key component to understanding the rest of the creation narrative because the pattern in which it is created has purpose.  It is not arbitrary, random, or ill-informed.  

Pattern (Genesis 1:3-2:2)

Now that we have a right presupposition concerning the creator, God; we can discuss the pattern of His creation.  God creates with order.  First, God orders light and darkness.  Then, God names and codifies light and darkness.  This sets a pattern that will be repeated throughout this chapter where God orders and establishes a pattern throughout each day of creation.  Each day of creation is different in some way, but not necessarily disconnected from each other.  There is a forward movement of this pattern in such a way as to expect a culmination in some type of grand event.  If our presupposition is that God is the creator of all things, then we have to understand that the pattern of creation is not arbitrary or random, but that it does have a purpose.  Thus, we understand that the pattern God has established and recorded for us is the model by which we are to arrange our lives.  This is where we derive the 6-day work week because God worked for 6 days, then He rested.  

Patterns are important in Biblical stories.  We see God use patterns to give information such as the patterns of the seasons.  This tells us when each year passes.  The workweek pattern is also important in a similar regard.  It helps us keep up with the time, but it also prevents and protects us from burnout.  God’s forward progression in the pattern of creation is establishing a habitat in which humans can thrive.  To reject the patterns that God gives in His scriptures is to reject the idea that God knows and does best.  Do you live your life in a way that you confess that God knows and does best?  Could God have created everything in one day?  Yes, but it’s important to note that He didn’t.  God established a pattern for a purpose!    

Purpose (Genesis 1:3-2:2) 

If we look and analyze each day, we can see that purpose emerges readily from the passages.  Not only does God establish a pattern through His working, but we see that God intentionally designs Earth in a specific reality that has purpose.  The earth appears so that it can have vegetation.  The vegetation appears so that it can be food for all animals.  Each time God orders something, He does so for a purpose.  This means that we cannot help but to observe or ask what the purpose is.  In the creation account, it’s the purpose of the creation to show God’s creative splendor, His majestic ability, and supreme power/ability.  Not only do we ascertain things about God in the reality that He has established, but we also see individual purposes of the created things as well.  Some things are food, others are habitats for dwellings.  These all show us the unique characteristics of the creator.

Genesis 1:26-28 We see that humanity has a specific purpose as well.  This purpose is to exist and image God throughout the rest of creation.  The command to exercise dominion over the rest of creation and to subdue it has in mind the idea of stewardship.  One of the purposes of humanity is to care for, oversee, and tend to God’s creation in loving care.  

The Westminster Catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” and answers that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  This imaging and enjoying is a direct representation of the creation account.  

To understand the creation account as God has recorded for us is to understand and value the reality that God established through His creational declarations.  Notice, how the trees have their part, the sun has its specific part, and humans have theirs.  This pattern and purpose that God created the world is Divine intentionality.

How do you view God’s pattern and purpose?  Do you do a good job at stewarding God’s creation, imaging Him throughout your dealings in this world?  When we talk about reality, we have to remind ourselves that the pattern and purposes that God has delineated are good.  We ought to uphold them.  This means that there is value in the pattern purpose of “male and female.”  This seems to be a common distortion in our culture today.  People abuse the pattern and purposes that God has intrinsically woven into the fabric of reality and reject God by rejecting His reality and living in a false reality, imaging, a false god, and being confused about the purpose of the diversity of the creational distinctions.

For example, the Sexual Revolution misunderstands reality when they say that a man can become a woman.  Outdoorsman misunderstand reality when they abuse hunting as a sport from the greed of their heart.  Teenagers misunderstand the creational reality when they are searching for purpose in a girlfriend/boyfriend.  These misinterpretations of reality in our minds ought to be repented from and we ought to come back to the creation account allowing God to reshape and recalibrate our understanding of what reality is.  Thereby allowing God the ability to redefine our presuppositions, calibrate our patterns of life, and remind us of our purpose.  If we live our lives inside of a false reality, not only are we living in a less-than-wholesome way, but we are also denying the perfection and personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.  This is deistic living instead of Christian living.  

Let us be reminded this morning, we have a natural tendency to live in denial of reality.  Look with me at how the Apostle Paul describes this tendency in Romans 1:18-28.  These people were living in a false reality because of their refusal to acknowledge God: their presuppositions were devoid of God, their patterns skewed, and their purpose misdefined, they exchanged their souls for pleasure.  Church, this is what is happening in the world around us.  The presuppositions that deny God, deny the creational reality, and it denies purpose to everything leaving people left to their own devices.  “Your Truth” is not reality, God’s Truth is.  Church let us set it in our hearts to understand reality through God’s expressed declaration and not our own.  

Personal Interaction (Genesis 1:22, 28-31)

The reality that God creates and describes for us in Genesis 1 also includes the relational space for God to be intimate and personal with His creation.  Did you notice how many times God blesses His creation and gives specific instructions to them?  This is personal and intimate interaction.  

We need to have a deep understanding of the personal interaction of God within His creation.  Our view of reality has to understand that God is a personal and intimate God.  In John 3:16, God sent Jesus into the world.  This is the climax of personal and intimate.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the climax of the personal and intimate relationship of God with man.  God does not alter reality when He intervenes because He designed it in such a way as to be able to interact inside or outside of it as He pleases.  Let us note that God does not leave His creation uninformed.  The blessings not only provide purpose but intentional relational intimacy as well.  The creation itself is an intimate endeavor of God such that the creation and the creator have a relationship with one another.  This relationship is inescapable.  So, you might ask, why is this inescapable?  The answer is simply because the reality God created the world in places Him, the creator, in relationship with the creation.  God’s Sovereignty and Providence reign over all of creation.  

The real question is where do you stand in this relationship with God?  Are you in a right personal, intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or are you estranged from God?  If you aren’t sure, please find me, Dan, or any of the other leaders to have a conversation about how you can know God personally in Jesus.    

Pleasure (Genesis 2:1-3) 

Thus far this morning, we have considered that in order to start thinking in a Biblical worldview we need to learn how God has established True Reality expressed in the creational account in its Presupposition, Pattern, Purpose, and God’s Personal Interaction.  The last aspect we should consider about the creational account is that it shows us that God rested and enjoyed His work.  

The Sabbath is not made because God was tired.  It was made because God was done.  The creation was completed.  It was time to enjoy the work of His hands and commune with His creation.  This is the type of rest that we should be seeking to imitate on the Lord’s Day.  This is a rest from the work of our hands of the week’s labor so that we might enjoy God’s provisions for us as He enjoyed His creation at its completion.  This is a time for worship, reflection, and communion with God, and His Saints.  This is a day that God specifically set aside to rest from creating, to rest from work, and in like manner so should we, that we might acknowledge in gratitude the pattern, the purpose, the personal interaction, and the pleasure that God gives to us through His Divine care and intimacy that we share with Him and in His Son, Jesus Christ.  

Conclusion

Genesis 1 – 2:3 is not a scientific textbook, but it is a formative foundation for establishing a Biblical Worldview as it defines what “reality” is for us.  

Let us ask ourselves, where have we denied our God in our view of reality?  Where have we failed in seeking to honor God by adopting secular ideologies?  Where do our views need reformation?  Where have I identified my purpose as something different than what God has defined?  In what ways have I seen God as impersonal?  

May we repent and seek our Lord & Savior, Jesus Christ, who is faithful to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness whether it be in thought, word, or deed.    

“This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.”