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In the Beginning
The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity – 10/20/2024
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Rev. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion from God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our Old Testament lesson from the book of Genesis in the first and second chapters with special emphasis on verses twenty-six through twenty-eight which read as follows:
“Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
One of the great fears of Christians is that we are not right. Rather, that God is not real and that this whole religion thing is a big farce. I dare say that the fear of those who are outside of the church is exactly opposite. That is to say, the man who lives like there is no God is one who is secretly afraid that God is real. But, today we are not going to look at the man who professes unbelief. No, instead, we must turn our attention on ourselves and our fear about the truth of the Christian religion.
Yes, I do mean exactly what I say here: many of us are afraid that this is not true. And we can certainly see it in the way we move through our days and make our decisions. This is one of the reasons that we are uncomfortable with the Bible and what it says about things that rub against our culture like marriage, family, the relationship of men and women, how we treat authority, and so on and so forth. There’s a reason we want to hedge and back down when we’re challenged; we want to fit in with the world because, among other reasons, the devil and our sinful nature have convinced us to be afraid of this all being untrue.
Now, dear friends, let me assure you that God is real. The reason we submit ourselves to the written Word of God, the holy Bible, is because God is real. This is why we prioritize the wisdom of the Scriptures over the supposed wisdom of our age. This is why we, against sinful human nature, cherish love, charity, and the rule of law.
But behind all of these things lies something that is far more basic to how we understand ourselves. The world would have us believe that we human beings are a cosmic accident, that we are here due to some happenstance, that we have no purpose in life. In other words, we are seen as insignificant specks in a great universe, without purpose or meaning. This is the implication of what the world says about how we got here: big bang theory and evolution posit that we human beings are the result of random chance, that we have no more value than any other animal. Indeed, some would go so far as to say that we have less value than certain rarer animals. This is why the radical environmentalist movement happens to overlap pretty heavily with the depopulation movement. The assumption behind those advocating for euthanasia and abortion is that people do not have value other than what can be arbitrarily assigned to them by themselves or someone else. Either way, life is meaningless and a meaningless life does not require us to defend it necessarily.
And what does the world tell us to do in the midst of such meaninglessness? They tell us to embrace nihilism. They tell us to scoff at anyone who stands for anything beyond some temporary pleasure in the moment. They tell us to join the party, roll our eyes, and numb ourselves through drink, drug, screens, and mindless consumption. After all, if we are just random products of evolution and natural forces, then there cannot be any higher calling than to out compete some other poor slob and use and take as much as we can. There is no joy or goodness in work, it instead is just drudgery. And, at the end of the day, such thinking says that we only have ourselves and whatever pleasure we make or indulge in.
But dear friends in Christ, this is not the case. As surely as God lives, we are not here by accident. Why are we Christians so insistent that we defend creation as recorded in the book of Genesis? It is not because we are scientifically illiterate buffoons. It is because at the root of this debate is a foundational claim that we are here on purpose; that human beings serve some part of God’s grand plan. There is no one who is without value. We, each of us, are still in some sense in the image and likeness of God. Male and female alike, we were created by God and are special in all of creation. We are the pinnacle of what God has made. And even though we have been marred and corrupted in sin, this goodness still shines through. For this reason, we defend every human being as valuable in and of themselves.
Even more than this, every human being is someone for whom our Lord Jesus Christ gave up His life, atoning for their sins, paying their debt of sin, and earning for them a place in heaven’s eternal life. Yes, this is how precious you are to your Father: He gave up His only begotten Son for you, so that you would live.
And this also means that our lives are not without purpose. God has a will, a desire, a plan for you to be saved in Christ and He grants you freedom to decide how you will live your life as a redeemed child in the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus.
The modern world would have us believe that we are without purpose and that our lives are meaningless. And even though sin makes us afraid to boldly claim such truths, we must call this out for the lie that it is. You are here on purpose. You are valuable because you exist. You matter to God so much that He gave His Son up for you and your salvation.
So we do not fear the devil or the world and their lies. God made this world. It is His. He is in control. And all things ultimately work together for His purposes.
Take heart, dear Christian, you are here on purpose, you are no accident, and you have been atoned for in Christ Jesus.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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