Good morning. It's fun to watch the baptism videos. I do think we perhaps might want to
consider taking up a collection for Mountain View to get them a bigger pool. I was thinking
Scott may have pulled his back out and now want workman's comp because of it. At the
eight o'clock service, one of the women who was baptized told her story, and she said
since last week, she has thought of that moment coming out of the water over a hundred times.
My prayer for us this morning is as we look at what does it mean to know God as our Creator?
Maybe not a hundred times, but a lot of times this week. We will think about that and live
differently because of it. We're in a series right now called Aka, also known as, and we're
looking at the various names of God, the myriad of metaphors that the Bible uses and that God
uses for himself in almost a desperate attempt for us to understand him. And how much and in what
ways will the correct understanding of this particular name of God this morning alter the
way in which you and I know him? I want you to think for just a minute about a time in your
life when you have been in nature and you have just been utterly overwhelmed. Just think about
that for a minute and hold that thought there. We're going to come back in just a minute. This
name, as God is our Creator, is the very first name used in Scripture of God. The fifth word
into Scripture in Genesis chapter one, verse one, it says in the beginning, God created. And
through the rest of the chapter, we have this amazing narrative of God calling into being all
kinds of creation. And at the end of the chapter, actually getting his hands dirty while he creates
people. And every one of us have had times and moments in our lives where we've seen something
in nature that stirs something in us. So here's what I'd like you to do for the next 30 seconds.
Just turn to the person next to you and take about 15 seconds each and tell them what you
thought about a minute ago when I asked you for that experience in your life. Take 30 seconds
right now.
All right. Come on back. For most of us, that experience was long enough ago that it's a
distant memory, but it's amazing when we talk about it, how we're able to recall some of the
emotions and the senses that we were experiencing in that moment. Nature has a very powerful way
of reconnecting us to God as Creator. And most of us have had experiences in nature where we
have felt that staggering sense of complexity and diversity, breathtaking beauty, astonishing
creativity, and added to all of that the joy of discovery that we have in that moment. And
it all means something. In Psalm chapter 19, in the first three verses of this Psalm, David
writes, the heavens declare the glory of God. Even the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Every single day, they pour forth speech. And at night, they display knowledge. There
is no speech or language where the voice of creation is not heard. A few weeks ago, I
went on a Sunday afternoon overnight with my son who is now 20 up near Sea Ranch. And
on Monday morning coming back on Memorial Day, he found a beach where the waves looked
just about right. And he got out in the water to surf. And I walked along the beach on a
very cloudy cold day and ran into a father and his two-year-old toddler. And that little
girl would dig her hands into the sand and get him dirty. And then she would run at the
waves and stand there and scream at them as though by her screaming she could stop the
waves. And then if they came towards her, she would turn around and run towards her
father and throw her arms around him and shriek with laughter. And then she put her hands
in the sand and get him dirty and do it over and over and over again. There is something
about experiencing nature that taps into this knowledge that we have that somebody greater
than us made it all and has a purpose for it. I grew up surfishing with my father and
I have many memories of warm summer nights in Los Angeles where the phosphorescent algae
would come in under a full moon. And when we would cast our lines out into the water,
it looked like the sea was on fire. I've been with my father in Death Valley at a sunset
when the rippling sand dunes looked like the ocean and then again in the spring when there
were so many wildflowers that it defied the name of the valley. We live not far away from
Santa Cruz where every year over 100 million monarch butterflies migrate over 4,000 miles
to the eucalyptus trees right next to Arch Rock Beach. We are a stone's throw away from
Big Sur where the hawks turn circles on the thermals and the cobalt and sapphire ocean
crash at our feet. There are birds with different architectures, red-winged blackbirds that
have staccato flaps. There is in Napa lines of grapes that in the winter are bare and
in the spring the wood that holds them up literally groans under the weight of the fruit
that they bear. There is not far from us on the 280 and since I'm from LA it is the 280.
There are lots of deer that come right down to the sides. I was driving north on the 280
a couple of weeks ago and saw right up by Edgewood preserve a mountain lion running
across the field. Note to self, do not hike in Edgewood for a while, at least not without
your pocketknife. Sometimes here in the summer we can see at night the Milky Way and the
falling stars and Venus rising up next to the moon. Near Half Moon Bay there are tide
pools where neon orange starfish lay right next to purple sea anemone. I have been in
an airplane when a pilot woke us up at night to look out the left side of the plane to
see the northern lights that were like gossamer green ribbons shaking in the night. Near Woods
has ferns and rhododendron and breathtaking redwoods and banana slugs which I do think
were a freak of nature and a mistake perhaps. Lindsay may tell you more about them when
she closes. There are so many things in our world that if we pause to take the time will
not only take our breath away and move us but cause us to be reconnected with something
inside of us that is drawn to the God who created them. Paul says this in Acts chapter
17 verses 24 and verse 27 that the God who made the world and everything in it he is
Lord of heaven and earth and he did this so that people would seek him and perhaps reach
out for him and find him though he is not far from each one of us. There is something
about creation that reminds us not only of the greatness and the creativity of God but
it reminds us that he is near this God who made the world. Even David Hume who was considered
the father of modern skeptics wrote that the whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent
author. Part of the reason for the Genesis narrative where the writer tells us about
the creation of the world by the hand of God is to tell us much more about the why than
actually the how and the narrative is designed to present a bunch of alternative, I'm sorry
an alternate to the world views that were common at that time many of which still have
threads into some of the alternate world views that we experience now. Genesis tells us
that man is more than just a material being that he has a spiritual dimension and the
Genesis narrative works against the eastern religions of that day that were based on a
kind of pantheism. They saw the physical world as an illusion and they taught that we could
overcome that illusion by living in a way that transcended it and ignored it. But in
Luke chapter 24 the resurrected Jesus in his body that looked very similar to the one that
he walked the earth in eats a fish to show us that the material world is good and it
is not an illusion. Genesis' narrative is also crafted to fight against legalism which
found its way into some of the Greek and Roman religions of Jesus' day and certainly has
distorted some of our own Christianity that says the physical world is not good, that
it's bad and the body is bad and only the soul is good and it teaches us that every
time we experience a pleasure we ought to have a corresponding amount of guilt to go
along with it to balance it out and that self-denial and restrictions are the way to experience
God and that the will of God to be centered has to be miserable and make you hurt. And
the refrain in Genesis is what God created is good, it's good, it's good. The Genesis
narrative also argues against the kind of secularism that was prevalent in that day
and shows itself in our day in sort of a post-modern, post-Christian view of the world that says
the physical world is really an accident, that you and I are nothing more than the result
of blind forces that came together but the problem with that worldview is that without
the context of purpose and design there is utterly no way to determine good and evil,
right and wrong, justice and injustice and there is something inside of us that rises
up against that and says no. And then finally the Genesis narrative is designed to overcome
the current paganism worldview that was prevalent in that day that in our day takes the form
of the New Age religions and says that really the physical world is so marvelous itself
should be worshiped and they take the spirit that they see in the mountains and the water
and the trees and they make an idol of those things. Paul refers to this kind of approach
in Romans chapter one where he says that certain people gave up the truth of God and exchanged
it for a lie and began to worship and serve the things that were created rather than the
God behind them. And the paganism and this approach to religion unfortunately leaves
us worshiping idols that will eventually break our hearts, relationships, jobs, even beauty.
And the creation is set so that we will see the God behind it and that's where the purpose
and meaning comes into understanding what does it mean to know God as creator. There
is according to Genesis an intentional design with purpose and meaning that when we experience
it causes stirrings in us, longings and aches that connect us to the realization that we
have a desire to be reunited with something in the universe from which we have been cut
off. This Christian worldview says that it is God that created this world and all the
goodness that is in it and that he is so committed to that creation that not only did he get
his hands dirty creating us but that he left the intimacy of a trinity and came down to
this earth as Jesus and as we learned last week lives in the word redeemer to save us.
So with our time left this morning what I'd love to do is look at three postures or three
perspectives or three ways that we should live if we really understand the name of God
as creator and then when we are done with those three I have a video that I want us
to watch together with music as an experience to help us really understand what it means
to know God as creator. I'm going to spend a little bit more time on the first posture
than I am the second and third so don't get worried about the time when I go a little
bit longer on the first one. The first posture that the Bible teaches and Tim Keller writes
about so beautifully that we should have in our lives if we understand God as creator
is that of wonder. You and I ought to be living lives heavily steeped in wonder and so often
Christians have made the mistake of making the gospel seem grim in a way as though the
burden of the entire world is on our shoulders and Jesus kept saying to the people my yoke
is light. In Isaiah chapter 29 God says you have turned following me into a religion based
on rules and what I need to do is to re-estound you with wonder upon wonder and it is so easy
in our legalism to bend back over to making our following God just a set of rules instead
of a breathtaking reality of this kind of wonder. Some of you in this room are old enough to
remember when we used to have only black and white televisions and you remember the day
that it went to color and on Sunday night the wonderful world of Disney when Tinker Bell
used to yeah when she would do her magic wand and it would be three shades of gray all of
a sudden went to technicolor. It is from going to living life in black and white to technicolor
this understanding of God as creator and the wonder in which we are supposed to live.
I have a good friend of mine who has an eight year old son and last year he drove his eight
year old son for his birthday to the Grand Canyon. Now driving to the Grand Canyon is
very different than driving to the Tetons where as you get closer you see even more
clearly what it is you are going to visit. When you drive to the Grand Canyon you don't
see anything until you get there. And they arrived in the parking lot on one of the rims
right before sunrise and my friend said to his eight year old son do you trust me? Eight
year old kid. Of course I trust you dad that is kind of a weird question. So he held his
son's hand and he walked him right up to the edge of the rim. Mom obviously was at home
not knowing any of this was going on. And he told his son to stay there and keep his
eyes closed until he told him and then he waited until the sun came up. And right at
that moment when the streaks of light came across the top of the canyon he said to his
son open your eyes. And he said for the next 30 seconds his son shook his head from side
to side. His mouth just hung open. And then he looked up at his father with tears in his
eyes and he repeated over and over again. I had no idea. I had no idea. And I want to
ask all of us in this room when has following God when is the last time it has evoked in
you that sense of I had no idea. In Genesis chapter one at the end in verse 31 it says
God saw everything that he had made. And then this time he didn't say it was good. He had
said that multiple times before. He said it was very good. Jesus' first miracle in John
chapter two is turning 150 gallons of water into wine. A miracle that some would say was
an unworthy use of his power but apparently the master of creation did not think so and
he raised the party to new levels. Now I'm not talking about overindulging in wine but
I am saying that the first miracle was about the enjoyment of what God had created. And
what happens to us when we live in that kind of wonder with God are a couple of really
good things. The first thing it may cause you if even for just a moment in the course
of a day to relax, to cease from striving, to allow God and his creation to remind you
that you can be released from your need to be important and impressive. And God knows
in the Silicon Valley we could all use a reminder of that. In Colossians chapter one that John
read last week as we looked at the name of God as Redeemer, let's read the whole section
of those three verses 15 through 17. It says, He Jesus is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven
and on the earth. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. This
Jesus was a gift to us because God is invisible for us to be able to see him and he is part
of the creative force of God that made the world in which we can see God. And in Jesus,
the whole universe that you see is held together. And so as important as an impressive as you
might be at work, you can relax. The world is not on your shoulders. It is not even your
job to completely change the world, but to rest in the fact that God is Creator. Something
else that allows us to do when we live in this kind of wonder, it allows us to free
ourselves up to be creative beings. We were made in the image of God and every time in
our work, in our hobbies, in our relationships that we do things that are creative that inspire
people, that show new possibilities, that re-infuse hope or delight somebody else, we are reflecting
the nature of God. In Genesis chapter one, the Hebrew word for create is bara and it
is only used in the Old Testament for when God creates. When people create, there is
another Hebrew word used that's a lesser word that reflects the idea of us in our creativity
reflecting God in creation. So the wonder of God in creation allows us to enjoy it, to
relax and to create and be the kind of people God intended us to be. C.S. Lewis talks about
this when we enjoy the wonder of creation, that all of that enjoyment spontaneously should
overflow into gratitude or praise. And that that gratitude and praise is almost like our
inner spiritual health being made audible. It doesn't just merely express our gratitude,
it actually completes the enjoyment of it. And I hope many times this week you have that
experience and get reminded of the name of God as Creator. A second kind of posture that
we should take because we are aware of the fact that God is Creator. Is that of protector?
Almost a bodyguard kind of stance that we really are rebuilders of this earth. God created
it. But that pollution and other things that concern the environment ought to be important
to us because of what Paul writes about in Romans chapter one, where he says what may
be known about God is plain to people. Because since the creation of the world, all of the
invisible qualities of God, his eternal power and his divine nature have been clearly seen
being understood from creation. And what is true is there are many people in our lives
who we know and love in our family or friends. And there are people all around the world
who their first step in a journey back towards God may not be in a church. But it may be
those moments like you and I have had in creation. So Christians ought to be strong protectors
of clean water, unpolluted oceans, and protected park preservation to keep this world intact
enough that people can see the glory of the Creator. And the third posture that we should
take is that of fighter. Tim Keller says that Christianity with all its talk about being
a loving religion is also a fighting religion. That it is very clear that there are two forces
at work in this world, one which is a very good force of God that created this amazing
world and one is sin that has caused it to go wrong. And God insists very loudly that
we be part of putting it right. In Isaiah chapter 59, verses 15 and 16, it says that
God looked and saw that there was no justice, that that was displeasing to him and that
in addition to being displeased, he was absolutely appalled that there was no one to intervene.
That which is broken needs mending. I have a friend who lives in Chicago, his name is
Lance and he and a couple of other very successful businessmen recently went on a trip with orphan
network down to Nicaragua, which is the poorest speaking Spanish country in the world. And
they went with the leader of orphan network which works with street orphans into one of
the dumps on the outskirts of Managua. And Lance told me, you can see it was like seeing
what I imagine the gates of hell would be like. Hundreds of millions of pounds of trash
in 90 degree weather where the steam was rising off of them and children scurrying all over
trying to find something to eat or something to sell. Lance said we came across a door
that looked like it had been discarded but the guy that runs orphan network opened the
door and they walked in in the midst of all this refuge into a little tiny room that orphan
network had bought and there were about 40 or 50 little children 18 months to 6 years
old being taught by a 23 year old young woman who was a Christ follower who's given her
life to these children because she feels like she needs to fight for justice in a place
where there is none. Lance said she knew that every one of the men coming to visit that
day were men of great resources and Lance asked her what can we do to help and her immediate
response was you can pray. Me I would have asked for money first, prayer second. And
he said they all gave generously but he was so overwhelmed by her fighting for those children
and her request for prayer before money that he actually had to walk out of the room and
he said I just held my face and the handkerchief meant to keep the smell away and sobbed.
Christianity is a fighting religion and my hope and prayer for us as a church and as a
community is over the next months and years we figure out how to make something as wonderful
as compassion weekend less of a one time event and more of a lifestyle and how we look at
our neighbors around us in Menlo in East Palo Alto up in San Mateo and Mountain View and
in the world. And how do we as Christians understand that we ought to outstrip everybody
else in the world in the way that we tackle cancer and poverty and pollution and injustice.
That we are because God is the creator we are fighters. Every moment when you experience
creation you are reminded that we live in a magnificent world not just for the sake of
it being magnificent but that magnificence reflects who God is. May we live deeply in
that goodness this week. May it change the way that we live. May it change the way that
we see others. May it change the way that we know God. Let's pray. God for your staggering
creativity for the beauty that takes our breath away for the moments that make us ache for
the world set right. I pray that we would see you. But instead of a God that is far
and distant and angry that we would see you as close and personal and amazing and creating
goodness just because you can't help yourself. May we get to know that part of you in ways
that we have not yet. Thank you for your creation for your son and for wanting to be close in
Christening. Amen.
