Purpose, Joy, Worship - Genesis - December 21st, 2025 (Sermon Transcript)

Well, this morning we are back in the book of Genesis. And as we get started, I want to remind you of just how revolutionary of a book this is.

Maybe you've been in the church for a long time, and the book of Genesis and what it teaches feels really familiar.

Even if you're newer to the faith, the idea that there's a God who created the world, who created the universe and everything in it, that doesn't seem like a revolutionary idea. It seems pretty standard, pretty common.

But when Genesis was first written, it was an absolute revolution. Nobody had ever heard anything like it, truly. Nobody believed in one supreme God who created the universe and everything in it.

It changed the way that people viewed the world. It gave people a true and better understanding of the world. And my argument is that it has the power to do the same thing today.

It has the power to do the same thing to people like us today. I think Genesis in many ways is just as revolutionary today as it was back then. When you get past the surface, when you dig a little deeper, you can see it.

This morning I want to show you how Genesis shapes our understanding of purpose, joy, and worship. Let me say that again and then we'll read the text together. Genesis shapes the way we view.

Genesis presents a revolutionary view of purpose, joy, and worship. Please stand for the reading of God's word. I'll read the text for us.

Genesis chapter 1, verses 11 through 25. And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit, in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so.

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. There was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.

And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night, and the stars.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

And there was evening, and there was morning, the fourth day. And God said, let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.

So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the water swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so.

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated and join me as I pray for us. Father, your word is truly supernatural. It is food for our souls.

It is infallibly true. It is good and it is beautiful. So, I pray that you would give us eyes to see it and ears to hear it this morning.

Apart from your spirit, apart from your help, they are just words. We can drift off to think about our plans for the holidays or watching football later or whatever it might be.

But with your help, God, we can see, we can really see, we can really hear and really appreciate and be fed and be changed. Please help us, we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

5:08

Godʼs Purposeful Creation

One thing that becomes very clear throughout the creation account is that God makes everything with a purpose. Everything is full of value and meaning and purpose. In many cases, he spells out what the purpose is.

For example, fruit trees have a purpose. We see this in our passage. Their purpose is to bear fruit, and later we'll see that the fruit exists for humans to eat it and to enjoy it.

The lights in the heavens, that is the sun and moon and stars, they have a purpose. Verse 14 tells us that they separate the day from the night. They allow us to keep track of time and have seasons.

They shine light on the earth so that we can see the things around us. Then in verse 20, we see how the animals fill the earth with life and activity. How boring would the universe, would the world be without animals?

They add so much to God's creation. As you go through this passage, you can think, well, what if we didn't have these things? What if there was no difference between like light and darkness, and it was just light all the time?

Might feel kind of monotonous. Might be hard to keep track of time. What if there are no animals on the earth, and it was just us?

That would be strange. That would be boring. You can see as you go along, man, these things have a real purpose, and it's a good purpose.

God knew what he was doing in creating the worlds. So we have all these animals, and they're interesting and beautiful. And later we learn that animals provide food for human beings to eat, and clothing for humans to wear.

6:49

Kinds and Design

Everything God makes has a purpose. We see this more subtly in the repeated use of the word kind throughout this passage. Looking again at verse 11 for a second.

And notice how the vegetation is created to produce seeds. The fruit trees are created to produce fruit, each according to its kind. Each according to its kind.

Then that word kind is repeated 10 times in 14 verses. Over and over and over again, each thing is made according to its kind and reproduces according to its kind.

The scholar Derek Kidner points out just how strongly this is emphasized in the original language. In English, we can count the number of times that we see the word.

But because we're not reading this in the original Hebrew, there's even more emphasis that we fail to pick up on. So according to Kidner in the original Hebrew, verse 11 literally says, Let the vegetation vegetate.

Let the plants seed seed, and the fruit trees make fruit. So what do apple trees make? Apples.

What do rose bushes produce? Roses. What do almond trees make?

Almonds. And what do monkeys make? Humans.

What do hippos make? Whales. Right?

Now, that would be one kind of thing producing a different kind of thing. But God made everything to reproduce according to its kind. According to theories of macroevolution, there is no real distinction between kinds.

One thing can make another kind of thing, but it seems like that theory is being ruled out right here in the book of Genesis.

Now, the word kind, to be fair, the word kind in the original Hebrew is not equivalent to species, the way we use it in scientific jargon today.

So, we can't say for sure that this and this alone is ruling out macroevolution as a possibility, because Genesis doesn't use the word that way. Genesis is not a scientific textbook.

But as I've been saying, I don't think Christians should believe in contemporary theories of evolution. I don't, and I want to say that clearly and strongly, and I've given you all kinds of evidence and reason for saying that.

One reason is that a lot of scientists don't believe in contemporary theories of evolution. A lot of prominent scientists with PhDs in relevant fields don't even believe it. And Jesus took the book of Genesis literally, so I think we should too.

However, at the same time, even though I don't want to say it, to be honest, even though I don't want to say it, I have to admit that it is possible to be a Christian who believes in neo-Darwinian evolution.

I think it's a bad idea, but it doesn't mean that somebody is not a Christian, and it doesn't mean that they don't take the Bible seriously. So let's be clear, evolution is not the dividing line between Christian and non-Christian.

To be a Christian, you simply have to recognize that you're a sinner and Jesus saves sinners, and you have to ask him to save you. You don't need to believe in young earth creationism. You don't need to understand the Trinity.

You don't have to hold to a certain view of baptism. You just need to confess your sin and repent and trust in Jesus as your one and only hope for salvation. That's what it means to be a Christian.

That's the whole thing right there. That is the essence of it, the core of it. It's not about creationism.

It's not about baptism or some other particular doctrine. It's not about doing a bunch of good stuff so that you can be a good person, so you can go to heaven when you die. It's about that and that alone.

If you want to be saved from hell, if you want to be saved from sin and death, if you want to be a Christian, you personally need to talk to God and confess your sin and commit to turning away from your sin and ask God to save you, to recognize, I'm

a sinner, but God sent Jesus to save sinners and to say, God, would you please save me? That's what it means to be a Christian.

And so we have to include our Christian brothers and sisters who do believe in evolution and who do take the book of Genesis metaphorically. I think it's a bad idea, but that cannot be the dividing line.

11:42

Rejecting Godʼs Design

Now let's get back to the broader point I was making about kinds. What Genesis is saying about kinds has profound implications for our lives.

I think it has implications for the debate between creation and evolution, but it also has a lot of profound philosophical and personal implications for us. Think about it like this.

What happens if you try to take an almond tree and make it produce peanuts? Failure. That's what happens.

An almond tree will never produce peanuts. An apple tree will never produce oranges. What happens if you get really determined, and you decide, I'm going to take out the roots of the apple tree and replace it with roots from an orange tree?

What's going to happen? What's going to happen if you try to change the leaves or change the bark? The tree is going to die.

That's not its purpose. God designed it with a purpose. And if you try to alter that purpose, you're going to fail.

The tree is going to die. So what happens if you try to live your life apart from God?

What happens if you decide you're going to go your own way, you're going to come up with your own ideas about the world, you're not going to listen to God, you're going to believe this and believe that instead, and you believe this is true, and this

is right, and this is how I want to live, and this is who I'm going to be, and I don't buy into any of that Jesus stuff or any of that Bible stuff. It's all corrupt. They're a bunch of hypocrites. I'm just going to do it this way.

This is what I believe. What happens if you go your own way and you don't listen to God's commandments? Failure, and ultimately, death.

Because God created you with a purpose. Just like apple trees are created to produce apples, you are created to know God and to live according to his will for your life.

And if you do, if you try to do it any other way, it's not going to work because that's not how God designed you. God created everything according to its kind and for its unique purposes, including you.

And we dare not violate his purposes for his creation. Sometimes we are just so outrageously bombastic and presumptuous to think that God made the universe and everything in it, but I'm going to do what I want.

And I'm going to do what I want with his creation. Who are we that we would dare violate God's purposes for his creation? We dare not do it.

We dare not mix what God has separated all throughout the creation account.

We see God separating things, dividing the day from the night, dividing the waters from the land, separating this and separating that, and making each thing according to its kind.

You trees, you do this, and you're separate from these trees who do that, and on and on. We see this throughout Genesis and throughout the scriptures. Let's go to the book of Deuteronomy for a minute.

We see in our passage how God separates and divides everything, and then centuries later God gives the Israelites the law to enforce the divisions that he set in place when he created everything. One example is Deuteronomy 22, verses 9 through 11.

God commands, You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, lest the whole yield be forfeited, the crop that you have sown in the yield of the vineyard. You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

You shall not wear cloth of wool and linen mixed together. The rules seem kind of arbitrary, don't they? But you have to look at the bigger picture.

The big picture is that each thing in creation is meant to operate according to its kind. Everything is meant to stay in its lane to function as God designed it to function, to do what God created it to do.

And the Israelites were given these commandments to reinforce those principles. Not necessarily for the sake of these particular things, the ox and the donkey and so on, but to reinforce the bigger picture. Don't mix what God has separated.

Everything needs to stay in its lane. And yet, many people in our world today insist on attempting to create their own boundaries and create their own purposes.

For example, many people in our world today celebrate and promote the removal of distinctions between genders. That's one thing in creation that God separated. He created men and he created women.

In our world says, no, he didn't. Women can be men and men can be women. And even if you're not transitioning genders, men can act like women and women can act like men.

But God created the world with boundaries and unique gifts and purposes, each according to its kind. Men according to their kind and women according to their kind. But the modern world hates that.

The modern world hates that. And ultimately, it's a way to rebel against God. Our world today insists that true freedom is not living according to your design.

True freedom, they say, is living according to your desires. According to your desires. I heard from one preacher one time the analogy of a fish wanting to live according to its desires and not according to its design.

Fish of course are designed to live in water. But what if one fish has a deep desire to live on lands?

Just has all these hopes and dreams and just really wants to live on land and shouldn't the fish be given a chance to live on the land if it wants to?

Well, sure, the problem is it's going to die because it's designed to live in water and so it is with us. But we see this undermined everywhere in our world today.

So if you have a woman who just wants to be dominant and aggressive and dominate her husband, well, we have no problem with that. Because we don't hold to these distinctions between genders that God created.

If the man wants to stay home and make bread and nurture the children, we celebrate that. If the woman wants to be the protector and the provider and the leader, no problem.

If the man wants to be quiet and soft and passive, he's just getting in touch with this feminine side. But these things are a rejection of God's created order. We even see this with distinctions between humans and animals.

People in our world today want to blur the lines and break down the boundaries to remove the distinctions that God has made.

So you have kids wearing tails to school and taking it very seriously and making it a part of their identity to be whatever animal they want to be. Kids pretending to be animals.

You have grownups pretending to be animals in a much more perverted, disgusting way. At the same time, you have people who walk their dogs down the street in strollers. And I'm not saying that's necessarily sinful.

If you have a stroller for your dog, I'm not trying to call you out.

But you see, it's blurring the lines, blurring the distinctions that God has made, where you have people pretending like they're animals and people pretending like they're animals are humans. This has been going on for decades now, right?

Erasing the distinctions between us and the animals. It's all part of the evolutionary mindset. We are just monkeys who have evolved a bit further, erasing the distinctions that God has put into his creation.

We're just like the animals. We just have bigger brains. Some people like to say we're just stardust.

Ultimately, everything in the universe comes out of, you know, exploded stars. So in reality, we're just stardust. Or we, as human beings, are just molecules in motion.

So in reality, according to some people's views, there's no difference between you and the chair you're sitting on. We're all just collections of molecules. In fact, many scientists and philosophers today are adopting a view known as panpsychism.

It's the view that everything has consciousness. Everything has a mind or spirit. So the chair that you're sitting on has consciousness.

The stapler on your desk at work is conscious. It has a mind. The gas in your gas tank.

Fundamentally, everything in the universe is the same kind of thing. And some people go so far as to say, well, God is the same as the universe. The universe is God.

We're all a part of God. But God says otherwise. God makes each thing according to its kind.

Plants are one kind of thing. Animals are another kind of thing. We are a different kind of thing all together.

And God is above it all. Totally transcendent. Totally unique.

God has decided how the universe is supposed to operate and how each thing in creation is supposed to work together. And humans have invented a thousand ways to undermine and oppose and rebel against God's good creation.

We need to be aware of these things. We need to be aware of what's really going on. Pretending to be an animal is not just for fun.

It's rebellion against God's good creation. We need to be aware of these things and what people really believe in the implications of those beliefs and the sources of those beliefs. All of it, in the end, is rebellion and opposition against God.

And how do you think that's going to turn out? Psalm chapter 2 says, Why do the nations rage in the people's plot and vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. Just a note of commentary there.

It's the rulers, the people getting together and saying, Let's get rid of the restrictions that God has given us. Let's do it our way.

All of these beliefs and ideas from the Bible, all of that stuff is so antiquated and restrictive, and it's meant to just, you know, harm people and abuse people, and people use it to abuse their power. Let's get rid of it and let's do it our way.

That's what they're saying. But verse four, He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.

Everything we do in opposition to God is destined to fail. Only fools try to oppose God.

23:30

Wisdom and Joy

True wisdom is about understanding the purposes and plans God has for his creation and living according to them. Let me say that again. True wisdom is understanding the purposes and plans God has for his creation and living according to them.

So it is incumbent upon us to study the book of Genesis, to study God's word and say, ah, now I see. That's why God made this. That's how God made things to work.

Okay, now I'm going to live according to that.

If you want to thrive, if you want to flourish, if you want to find happiness and peace in your life, the only way to do it is to understand God's design for your life and everything about your life, whether it's work or marriage or forgiveness or

gossip or parenting, the only way to flourish and thrive is to understand what God says about it and to do it. Everything is created with a purpose, and everything is created good. When God designed the world, he did not design it to be miserable.

He designed it for us to enjoy it. He designed us to have joy in it. Next week, we'll talk more about humans and our place in creation.

But for now, I just want to point to the beauty and the balance that we see here in the creation account.

There are so many different views of the world and our place in it and how it all works, and so many of them fall into one of these two errors that I'm about to describe. But Genesis finds the perfect balance.

This is one of those revolutionary parts of Genesis. You see, most people in the ancient world thought that physical reality was bad.

They thought that the point of religion or spirituality was to get away from creation, to get away from, to escape from, physical reality. You see this in Buddhism. You see this in many religions today.

You have monks who lock themselves up in monasteries, and they refuse to participate in many of the good things that God has made. So they refuse to enjoy food. You have monks who take vows of silence.

They refuse to enjoy conversation and relationships with other human beings. You have religious people who refuse to enjoy marriage. You see, it's a whole mindset about creation that says the physical stuff is bad.

We got to get beyond the physical stuff to the spiritual stuff. But what does God say? Here we are in the book of Genesis, and God's creating everything.

What does He keep saying? He says it's good. Creation is good.

The physical world is good. God made these things for us to enjoy. But they're not the only things.

That's the other error. One error is that asceticism that says physical reality is bad. We need to escape it through our spiritual reality.

The other error says physical reality is the only thing that exists. So let's indulge. Let's enjoy it as much as possible.

Many modern people have fallen into that error where they think that the physical world is all that exists. So they make their entire lives about food and drink and sex and all kinds of physical pleasure and enjoyment. So which is it?

What do we do? Do we indulge every physical desire? Or do we refuse to indulge in any physical enjoyment whatsoever?

Well, it's neither. It's neither. It's what the Book of Genesis says.

God's creation is good. It's good and we should enjoy it, but it's not the only good thing. God's creation is meant to be enjoyed, but God himself is meant to be enjoyed even more.

27:44

Creation Declares Glory

Big emphasis of the creation account is making a similar point to this. Creation is great, but God is greater. When Moses wrote the Book of Genesis, the people of Israel were surrounded by cultures who worshiped the heavens.

They were surrounded. It was around 1500 BC. The Book of Genesis was written by Moses and originally delivered to the people of Israel.

And those people were surrounded by other people groups who worshiped the sun and the moon and the stars. So the Sumerians called them Anu, Enlil, and Enki. The Babylonians called them Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar.

The Egyptians worshiped the sun god Re, as well as Shu and Geb. But notice what our text says about the sun and the moon and the stars. It doesn't even give them names.

Verse 16. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. Just tack on the stars at the end, almost like an afterthought.

Because in comparison to God, in comparison to us, people made in God's image, the stars are just an afterthought. And the sun and the moon don't even get names.

The book of Genesis just calls them lights, so that the people would not latch on to those names and find themselves tempted to worship them.

They lived in a world where everybody around them, all the smartest people, all the most powerful and sophisticated people, everybody around them worshiped the sun and the moon and the stars.

But the book of Genesis undermines that by not even giving them names. In fact, God makes it clear that they exist to serve the people, not the other way around. Look at how it describes the sun and the moon and the stars.

They are there to give light to the earth so people can see. So that we can see. They provide cycles and rhythms so people can keep track of time.

And ultimately, they testify to the glory of God. They are not gods, but they glorify the one true God who made them. Psalm 19, verses 1 through 2.

The heavens declare the glory of God. And the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.

So you and I can look at the beauty of the stars, the magnificence and vastness of the stars and galaxies and planets. And we can see how remarkable and beautiful and great they are, and immediately realize God is even greater. God is even greater.

30:51

Human Dominion

Now, let me share one last psalm with you, and then we'll be done. It speaks to our attitudes about creation, how we're supposed to understand and respond to all that Genesis is teaching us. Psalm 8, verses 3 through 6.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You've given him dominion over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet.

What the psalmist is saying is that we are so tiny and insignificant compared to the sun and the stars and the galaxies. The earth is just a tiny little speck in some far off corner of the universe. Creation humbles us.

Creation humbles us, and yet God exalts us and gives us authority over creation. We are so small and weak, and our lives are just a vapor that vanishes in a moment. We're nothing in the vastness of the universe, and yet God loves us.

He cares for us. He gives us power and dominion and significance. In many ways, it's like the gospel.

The gospel that shows us that we're far more sinful than we would ever want to admit, but far more loved than we ever could have hoped.