Foundations

001 - Foundations 001 - The Starting Line

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Foundations Series 1: “The Starting Line” (Gen. 1:1)

Intro: In our time we are attacked from all sides. We are surrounded by evil. Our enemies are attacking the very foundations of Truth, and Life, and Meaning. What are we to do? How should we respond to these attacks? Scripture gives us the answer of course, but the bottom line is to shore up and build upon the true Foundation.

I. Why study foundations?

• Ps. 11:3 – What can we do when the foundations are destroyed?
  • 1Cor. 3:11 – The Answer: build upon Christ, the true Foundation.
    • Only that which is built upon Christ, the chief cornerstone, will endure.
  • The Scripture is built upon the foundation of Christ, and Christ begins his revelation of himself to us in the book of Genesis.
    • If we are to understand the answers to the foundational questions that many are asking in our time (What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? Who is in charge? Where am I going? Etc.) we have to understand the foundations that Christ has laid for these answers.
  • Genesis means “beginning” in Greek. (In Hebrew, the name is “In the beginning”)
    • Most doctrines in Scripture have their basis in the book of Genesis.
    • Jesus pointed to Genesis when in debate with Pharisees.
    • Genesis is the foundational reason we know what God thinks about:
      1. Marriage, Work, Sin, Faith, The Hebrews, Judgement, Nature, etc.
    • People naturally go back to the beginning. (What is the proof? Source?) We need to have a handle on God’s “beginnings” if we are to give them God’s answers to their perfectly legitimate questions.

II. God is the Creator. (Gen. 1:1)

• This verse gives us the first glimpse of God’s eternal nature.
  • He was already there.
  • One must be outside of time and space to create time and space.
  • This great truth is the starting point of Scripture.
    • Imagine if we didn’t have a starting point? (Illust: Race without a starting line.)
    • Having a Creator gives us guidelines and structure.
      • Guidelines like what my identity is, why I am here, what my purpose is, what a family should look like, etc.
  • This truth has significant implications for us.
    • The fact that we have a Creator gives us a construct for objective Truth.
      • In order for Truth to be objective for every man it has to have an Originator that is outside of man himself.
    • If God created us all, then he gets to decide what is right and what is wrong. He makes the rules.
      • Illust: If I build a building, I have the right to say what can and cannot be done in my building. I have ownership of it, and with that ownership comes certain rights.
      • He has a claim upon us. He has “rights” where we are concerned.
        • This bothers a lot of people. As well it should.
  • This one fact is under major and coordinated assault by the World and the Devil.
    • For a very long time men have understood that their conscience needs the Creator to be gone. They have sought to remove him from his position as creator. And so they have constructed a new “religion” in which to put their faith. One which does not require a Person who is the Originator of everything that is. One which glorifies “time” and “chance” as the start of life itself.
    • From Answers in Genesis – “The theory of biological evolution is not a modern idea as is often supposed. Organic evolution was first taught by the Greeks at least as early as the 7th century BC. Greek philosophers probably borrowed and adapted their evolutionary ideas from the Hindus, who believed that souls transformed from one animal to another until they reached a perfection state called nirvana. Charles Darwin allegedly made no contributions to the development of the theory of evolution by natural selection, but simply helped to popularize it. Evolutionists today argue that evolution is a modern idea (i.e. a product of scientific research), in part as an effort to lend credibility to their worldview.” (Journal of Creation 15, no 2 (August 2001): 77-80)
    • If God is not the Creator…
      • My life is my own.
      • No one can tell me what to do. (Subjective Truth)
      • Life has no meaning.
      • Life has no value.
      • There is no eternity. This is all there is.
    • What a bleak and hopeless worldview!

III. Christ our Foundation

• Col. 1:16-17; John 1:1-3 –
  • Christ made all that exists.
    • A study of Creation is a study of Jesus. He is revealed in Creation because he is the Creator.
  • Jesus is the Creator. He has a right to my allegiance.
    • To deny that allegiance is to rebel against the one that made me.
  • Jesus Christ is the ultimate foundation upon which all good and eternal things are built.
    • 1 Cor. 3:11