Welcome
to Disciples Net Church. We're so glad you've come to join us today. We're
going to have a wonderful worship with a focus on the creation story. We also
invite you to come to our website www.disciplesnet.org to find more faith
resources and to interact with our pastors or perhaps offer a prayer
request. So now let us come into the spirit of worship before our Lord.
Let all hear the joys, let all hear the joys. He raps himself in life. In darkness
skies to hide, in journals and toys, in journals and toys. How great is our God. Save me, how great is our God. And all see how great, how great is our God.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee. How great Thou art. How great Thou art.
Will you pray with me? Gracious and loving God, we lift our hearts to You in grateful
praise and join with all creation in declaring the greatness of Your name. In
the beginning Your Spirit moved over the chaos and gave birth to all the beauty
and abundance of creation. You created mankind in the image of Your own faithful
love and desire, dressing us in splendor, and entrusting the care of the earth into
our hands. From our midst You brought forth Your own child, Jesus the Christ, one
with You and the embodiment of Your Spirit, and through Him You invited all
people to be baptized into Your triune dance of love. Now through the Holy Spirit
You are with us always throughout all time and space. And so it is with Your
Spirit in our hearts that we boldly come before You, reconciled by faith, and lift
our concerns and our joys to You. For our homes and our cities and our nations, we
pray for peace. May Your Spirit empower our leaders to make wise and good
choices. For ourselves and our loved ones and for all Your children, we pray for
health. May Your Spirit enliven and heal us from the ills of this world. For those
without homes and families, especially those who suffered recent loss, we pray
that You would walk beside them as father and mother, sister and brother, and
that You would open hearts that they could find a place to call their own. For
us Your church, called to gather the world's needs into our hearts, fill us
with strength and courage, with discernment and compassion, that we might
be instruments of justice and love in this world. It is in the name of Your
Son, and in the manner He taught us that we pray, saying, our Father, who are
His heaven, how He gives our kingdom, Thy kingdom come, Thy glory come, the honor of the Son of God. Give us the today of our daily bread, and ever give it to our guests, as we forgive our guests, and ever give it to the Son of God, to Him and His nation, that Thou art the number of us from evil, for Thine is His kingdom, and Thou our heaven and glory forever.
Today, our scripture is a familiar scripture, found in Genesis chapter one,
read Genesis chapter two, verse four, and it reads, In the beginning, when God created
the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void, and darkness covered the
face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then
God said, let there be light, and there was light, and God saw the light was good,
and God separated the light from the darkness, God called the light day, and
the darkness he called night, and there was evening, and there was morning, the
first day. And God said, let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let
us separate the waters from the waters. So God made the dome and separated the
waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome, and so it
was. God called the dome sky, and there was evening, and there was morning, the
second day.
He knew the things that round we made. the music of the seas.
He's got the hope. It is. He's got the hope. It is. He's got the hope. It is. He's got the hope.
It is true.
This is my mother's world.
I rest me in the pot.
The rocks and trees, the skies and ceasings
and the mother's pot.
It's got the time you live, a baby.
In its hands, it's got the time you live, a baby.
In its hands, it's got the time you live, a baby.
In its hands, it's got the whole growth in its hands.
This is my mother's world.
In which I live all the time.
In the frosty grass I hear him cast,
he speaks to me everywhere.
He's up the wing and the rain.
He is fast, he's up the wing and the rain.
He is fast, he's up the wing and the rain.
He is fast, he's up the hold of his hand.
This is our Father's word.
Oh, let us not forget
that though our bond is weak and strong,
God is our ruler yet.
This is my Father's word.
Why should my heart be sad?
The Lord is King, let earth be glad.
God raise, let earth be glad.
God raise, let earth be glad.
This is our Father's word.
I once heard the Christian author and theologian Barbara Brown-Taylor
giving a lecture of advice to the preacher.
And one of the things she said was that
the Word of God has life and power of its own
apart from and jokingly sometimes in spite of
the skill of the preacher or the lack of skill of the preacher.
Sometimes she says the preacher is at his or her best.
When all we do is simply release the Word of God
out into the room where God's people are
and let it do its own work.
The problem I have today as a preacher
is not getting in the way of the incredible power
of the story itself.
I need to stay out of the way.
I need to let this story which is probably the most well-known
and beloved story of our entire faith tradition.
I need to simply let it speak to you in its own way
and do its own work.
And God said, let the waters under the sky
be gathered together in one place
and let the dry land appear.
And it was so.
God called the dry land earth
and the waters that were gathered together
he called seeds.
And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, let the earth put forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind
on the earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.
And it was so.
And find a way to move part of this story
from the then to now.
And I think we can find special meaning
in our own time, in our own lives
if we look at the story in the right way.
I start with a quick little word study.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The word translated create in most of our English texts
is the Hebrew word bara.
And I am not a Hebrew scholar.
I am dependent on commentaries
for what I share with you right now.
But the word bara means create or to make.
And it means that in a very special way.
The word bara occurs about 45 times,
I am told, in the Hebrew scripture.
And in each case it refers to the creative act of God.
Human beings do not bara things in the Bible.
Human beings make things that are described
in some other language.
But bara is within the realm of God's activity.
And it is the word of God
which is the agent of that creative power.
The earth brought forth vegetation,
plants yielding seed of every kind
and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it.
And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said let there be lights in the dome of the sky
to separate the day from the night
and let them be for signs and for seasons
and for days and years.
When we look at this beautiful story today
we see repeated over and over again
and God said.
According to Fred Craddock
there is in all of biblical literature
no creative power that is greater
than the creative power described by the phrase
and God said.
When God says bara happens.
And let them be lights in the dome of the sky
to give light upon the earth.
And it was so.
God made the two grade lights
the greater light to rule the day
and the lesser light to rule the night
and the stars.
God set them in the dome of the sky
to give light upon 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 waters bring forth
swarms of living creatures
and let birds fly above the earth
across the dome of the sky.
So God created the great sea monsters
and every living creature that moves
of every kind with which the water swarms
and every winged bird of every kind
and God saw that it was good.
The second thing I would like for us to notice
from a simple Bible study point of view
is that this text has a repetitive pattern
almost like the stanzas of a hymn.
We have repeated over and over again
an element of time.
There was evening and there was morning one day
or later there was evening
and there was morning the second day.
In each of the segments in each day
we have God making a command.
God says let there be.
Immediately following that
there is the execution of the command
and it was so.
And also in each segment
there is God evaluating the work of the day
the individual act of creation
and the text says
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them saying be fruitful
and multiply and fill the waters and the seas
and let the 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 of every kind
cattle and creeping things
and wild animals of the earth of every kind
and it was so.
God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind
and the cattle of every kind
and everything that creeps around
and everything that keeps upon
what does everything do?
and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind
and God saw that it was good.
Then God said let us make humankind
an hour image according to our likeness
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea
and of the birds of the air
over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
So God made humankind in his image
and the image of God he created them
male and female he created them.
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 of the birds of the air
and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.
God said see I have given you every plant
yielding seeds that is upon
the face of all the earth
and every tree with its seed in its fruit
you shall have them for food
and to every beast of the earth
and to every bird of the air
and to everything that creeps on the earth
everything that has breath of life
I have given every green plant for food
and it was so.
And in verse 31 at the end of all of the acts of creation
God analyzes the entire creation
and the text says to us
and God saw that it was very good.
And so we have these little segments repeated
in a certain pattern.
I am told that in Hebrew the rhythm
is even more pronounced than it is in English
and this whole text can almost be chanted
like a song.
God saw everything that he had made
and indeed it was very good
and there was morning and there was evening
the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished
and all their multitude
and on the seventh day
God finished the work that he had done
and he rested on the seventh day
from all the work he had done.
So God blessed the seventh day
and hallowed it because on it
God rested from all the work
he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens
and the earth when they were created.
The Word of God.
I believe we want to understand this story
also as a story of the grace of God.
As Christians we usually assign
the concept of God's grace
of salvation through grace
to a Pauline doctrine
the unmerited love of God.
We don't do anything to deserve God's love.
God's love comes to us
without any deserving on our part
and that means it is unmerited
if you will.
It is at God's initiative and not ours.
I would suggest that the grace of God
is perhaps even broader
than that doctrine of salvation
by grace that Paul has given to us.
I believe that the very act of creation itself
is an act of God's grace.
I know I certainly have not ever done anything
to deserve to be created.
I don't know that the world itself
ever deserved to be created
but it was at God's initiative
that God's love created
and provided the creative power
that put the world in its place
and brought all of us here.
As we look at our own world
and try to find meaning
for our own time and place
in the creation story
I would suggest to you that we need to look a little bit
at the history of Israel again
before looking at the 21st century.
I think I made a point a few weeks ago
on the subject of Moses
preaching to the people on the plains of Moab
and what was going on in the nation of Israel
at the time the story finally got written down
for the people.
That same idea needs to apply to this story
because this story predates all history.
This story predates writing.
When this story finally got written down
more or less in the form that we have it today
the nation of Israel was in desperate need of hope.
They were in exile and in captivity in Babylon
and the world around them
was saying to them
was giving them a message that they could not ignore
that it was a time of no hope.
It was a time of no power.
The world was giving them a message
that the gods of Babylon
must be more powerful than the God of Israel
because after all
Babylon had conquered Israel
and the people desperately needed a sense of hope.
And this story
reminded the people of Israel of that time
that despite what they thought
they saw around them in day to day life
that their God
was still the mightiest creator.
That their God was still in charge
of the world even if they didn't like
how things were going just then.
And it is here that you and I
in our world look back to this story
and find hope.
I do not feel conquered by the nation of Babylon
but I do look at the world around me
and I see
evidence just screening at me
that the good God
is not in control.
And I look at the story of the creation
and I am reminded that in spite
of what I see around me,
in spite of a world where there is hunger
and racism and war,
in spite of a world where young people
shoot each other in the streets,
in spite of all these things,
our God is an in spite of kind of God.
Our God is a powerful God.
God has made us.
And we look at the beautiful
and the planned creation of the world.
And despite fleeting evidence
to the contrary, we know
that God is in charge.
We know that God can be trusted.
We know that we can look
at the world we live in.
And in spite of everything we can say
it is very good.
Amen.
And God now I see
was grace that
taught my heart to hear
and graced my fears
we believe.
How precious
in that grace
I hear
the hour I first meet.
My chains are gone
I've been set free
my dark eyes say
God bless only
and I from God
in the mercy of grace
I'm happy God
amazing grace.
The church has soon
it's all white snow
and sun won't there
to shine
but God who brought
me here in Rome
will be forever mine.
Will be forever mine.
You are forever mine.
Hello, I'm Deb Phelps.
In this moment as we come to the table together
I invite you to join me in a word of prayer.
How gracious and loving God
as we come to this table now
we seek your forgiveness for our sins
and know that we are never fully worthy
to eat of this meal other than
through the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord
for that and we ask you now
that in this moment that you bless the bread
the cup that's here and as it extends
to where each person is listening
to the bread the cup they have before them
in whatever form it may be
even if it's in their minds I
we ask you to bless these things
as this moment we come
and we pray, amen.
And God said it was good
and then one day God sent
his only begotten son
in the form of a small baby
that would grow up and walk among the people
and be one of them
and eat with them
and share with them
and weep with them and laugh with them
and teach them
just in words but in deeds and demonstrating
God's love for them all
but also how they could work together
to share God's love with the world
and then there was a last night
of his walk on earth
when Jesus gathered his disciples together
into that room
where they were sharing a meal
and as they were eating
he took a loaf of bread
and he blessed it
and then he said to them
as he broke it, this is my body
that is for you
do this in remembrance of me
and then after they had finished eating
he took a cup
and he said to them
in this cup
it's the new covenant of my blood
poured out for you
do this in remembrance of me
for as often as you eat of this bread
and drink of this cup
you share the Lord's message
you tell the Lord's death
until he comes again
and my friends
this situation
where we are taking communion today
from our different places
and even times
from around the world
may not be perfect
I wish that I could see
each of you
and that we all could see each other
but maybe it's enough
maybe it's good enough
that we do remember
each time we come here
and as we come now
we do remember God's love for the world
shared and symbolized
by these simple elements
the bread and the cup
that you have before you at this time
so now I pass along
this invitation that Jesus gave
once you come to the table
eat of the bread and drink of the cup
that are given for you
the body of Christ
broken for you
a cup of blessing
poured out for you
Amen
Our Creator God
could have made
a perfect, complete
and finished world
God chose
instead
to give us
the great joy
of participating
along with God
in that act
of creation
my
wish and my prayer
for you
is that
you may feel
experience
and enjoy
what it means
to join with Almighty God
in making the world around you
what God wants it to be
for His King let earth be
let earth be
God
let the whole world
be
