   A) The Worship of the Creator
   B) The Meaning of Creation
C) Creation Lessons on God.
   D) God and the World's Religions
Assignment

Our lives cannot be successful without laying a good foundation. Genesis provides the foundation through which we are able to understand God, the world and our own lives. This is a huge task but carefully accomplished in its 50 chapters.

Our problems stem from a poor moral foundation. The reason God has given us commands is to help direct us to live the right way which will then affect our understanding about life. It is also the reason Jesus commanded us to disciple others. We are to teach new believers all that Jesus has taught.

Sanctification is this process which removes the old foundations, establish new ones according to God's Word and then consistently live by those principles. Let's take a look at the famous creation account in Genesis 1:1-2:3 to begin understanding and incorporating the right concepts of worship, God's creation and man..

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Genesis 1:1-2:3 Creation and the Worship of God

Man's perspective of God, the world and man is largely formed from the truths of Genesis 1 to 2:3. By studying these major concepts in light of the great works of God, our worship of God will deepen and inspire greater obedience and personal evangelism.

Objectives:

·         Understand what the scriptures say about the creation of the world.
·         Show why every person is responsible to worship God.
·         Recognize that God is free to use creation to serve His own purposes.
·         Give evidence that the healthy Christian is consciously leaning upon God for both his physical and spiritual needs.

Introductory Thought

Some of the most debated questions asked about the Christian faith demand that we go back to the creation account to understand what God expects from man and why.

• Is all of mankind really obligated to worship God? Why or why not?

• Is the non-Christian who never heard of God liable for his knowledge of God? Explain.

We hope to find solid answers for these questions in the study of Genesis 1:1-2:3.

A) The Worship of the Creator

The glorious attributes of God are clearly projected into a permanent record in the Genesis creation account: God’s power and eternal nature, His love, beauty and goodness, His order and purposes. No doctrinal statement is as powerful as the record of God's mighty works in Genesis 1.

The Creation account given in Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 is one of the most action packed bits of information known to man.

"Genesis 1, the most amazing composition in all the world's literature, using only 76 different word forms fundamental to all mankind, arranged in a wonderful poetical pattern yet free from any highly colored figures of speech. It provides the perfect opening to God's book and establishes all men really need to know of the facts of creation. No man could have invented it: it is as great a marvel as a plant or a bird. It is God's handwork, sufficient for Hebrew children or Greek thinkers or Latin Christians; for medieval knights or modern scientists or little children .. rich or poor, simple or learned ... sufficient for all! Only God could write such a chapter ... and He did."

Frederick Filby, professor of Chemistry in England.

Reading each verse of Genesis 1 is like walking down a long corridor. Every couple of words forms a doorway on ones left or right. Each door has on it a 'movie trail' (introduction) of some gigantic event. Once we start watching it, our hands invariably reach to open the door so that we can peer in for a closer look.

But on this page, we must try to keep an overall perspective of the main teachings being given. In other places we will pause at each door and glance to see what other mysteries of the universe are being revealed.

Let's note three special reasons we should worship Him with our whole heart, mind and soul.

• God is our Maker, Designer and Provider

God is interested in our lives. He desires the increase of blessing in our lives and has created a world to provide fulfill that goal (God does have other goals as well).

             • As our Maker, God brought us into existence.
             • As our Designer, He has seen through all the details of our lives.
             • As our Provider, He adequately provides for all our genuine needs.

We have so much to thank God for in every area of our lives. We owe Him all. Man is designed to have a special relationship with God. His worship stems from his total dependence upon God. His appreciation comes from recognizing what good things God has given to him. His security derives from knowing God’s beautiful arrangement of provision for man.

• God Shapes our Purpose

Man is expected like the rest of creation to completely follow along with God's plan. Genesis 1 breaks through the many barriers man has put up excusing his obedience by presenting how intimately He is involved in our lives.

God is not just an abstract thought. He is deeply involved in our lives by first equipping us for His mission and then calling us to fulfill His purpose.

And God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28).

Our life's purpose is to conform to His purpose. This intimate relationship with man is extended much further by the special way man was made able to communicate and closely relate with God (more in Genesis 2). God designed man to live according to His will not against it.

Man’s greatest knowledge will come from
understanding his life in relationship with God’s purpose for him.

Man's greatest peace will come from
living in harmony with God's purpose for him.

Having received everything man or woman might ever want, who would think that they would choose to distrust God in His care of giving them His very best. This sets the stage for yet a still greater show of God's great love for man.

• God is our Deliverer

The problem of man's discontent with God's will does not appear until Genesis 3. There man fell and was cast from God's presence. Everything good was stripped from him. Since man was designed to live in perfect dependence upon God for all things, the moment he stopped trusting in God, worries and fears set in. One would think their fall would end everything. After all, God did say that man would die.

Instead we find God providing clothes for man. We see that God made a promise to them for some kind of deliver. We see that God still patiently worked with man through early history – all to our complete amazement. This is what the rest of Genesis records, indeed, even the whole of scriptures until The Deliverer would come, the Promised Messiah, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus Christ would be the second Adam, in which through faith in Christ, we can be God's children and live as coheirs with Christ to rule with Him forever. Joy, love, excitement again fill man's heart as he embraces God's second chance. Will we be those who reject His purpose or in His infinite love humble our hearts and embrace His will as our own?

When we grasp this notion that we can actually reflect God’s glory and purpose through our lives here on earth, then we truly understand the implications of being made in the image of God. We therefore seek God’s purpose in our own lives rather than our own.

Worship of God then is the only proper response to the viewing of His creation. True worship affirms God's person and will by agreeing and complying with it.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 – The Bible Teaching Commentary

Creation and the Worship of God