God is Our Creator | A Sermon on Genesis 1

Introduction
Today, we commissioned our River of Life volunteers.  It’s an important ministry God will use to bless homeowners in our community.  It will bless the adult and youth volunteers as we serve too.  The mission starts in just a few days, but we’ve been preparing for this mission for a long time.

We have another mission that is coming up July 13-17 called Vacation Bible School.  So today, I begin a new sermon series that will help us prepare for VBS.  Each Sunday, I will share a message based on the themes from VBS.  And I think the theme today relates to River of Life as well.  Because it’s about our origin story.

It’s about why we are called to serve one another and treat each other with dignity.  It’s about how a person’s worth is not valued by how much money they have, what talents they possess, or even what they can contribute to society.  We are all priceless treasures because we were crafted by God’s ingenious design.  We are the crown of His whole creation.  And each one of us bears the image of God.

Psalm 103:22
Praise the Lord, everything he has created,
    everything in all his kingdom.
Let all that I am praise the Lord.

The Theme of Day 1
The lesson for Day 1 of our upcoming VBS is about the origin story of all creation & humanity.  It takes us all the way back to Genesis 1 and creation and encourages us to praise God who created it all.  This is an important lesson for kids and for all of us, because it reminds us when we believe in God we can also believe in ourselves. Remember the creation story in Gen 1?

Genesis 1:1-2
¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.^{[a] 2} The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.     

There was a time nothing existed.  But God took nothing and He made something special.  I was blessed as a child to be surrounded by people who encouraged me to believe in myself.  My mom would often tell me, “You can do anything you put your mind to.”  My Grandma said, “God loves you and I love you.”  And though there were sometimes mean people who tried to put me down saying “You’re stupid” or “you’re nothing,” I had enough people I trusted saying “You’re something special!" that I didn’t let the mean people get to me.

I think about that when I see kids nowadays.  You don’t ever know what they are going through or how the people around them make them feel.  What message are they getting?  Do they know they’re loved?  Do they know they are one of God’s most precious creations?  Or do they think their value is tied up in how well they perform, how pretty or handsome they are, or what grades they make in school or how fast they run? 

How about you?  What do you believe about yourself?  Do you realize you’re one of God’s greatest treasures?  I don’t mean do you know that up in your head.  I mean, do you know it deep down in your heart.  I mean look at how beautiful is God’s creation.

On the first day, He said, “Let there be light.  And there was light.”

On the second, He created the sky.  

On the third Day, He made the seas and dry land with all the trees, plants, and seed-bearing fruit. 

On the fourth day, God created the heavenly bodies to mark the seasons, days, and years and to govern day and night. 

On the fifth day, God created fish and birds to govern the sea and the sky.  

And it was all good.  God said it was good.  And we see it is so, so good. So beautiful!  

But then something was still missing.  Something else was needed. So on the sixth day, God made people, male and female, in His image, to be like Him. 

He made us to be caretakers of everything He had already made–the fish, the sea, the birds, the sky, the animals, the earth.

He said, reign over it all (on His behalf).

And then, and only then, did God say, “it was all very good.”  
It was so good, God decided to take the seventh day off just to rest and enjoy it all.

Now, I don’t know if you realize just how special you are, but you are.  As beautiful and precious as creation is, you are the crowning jewel of it all.

God loves you.  In Genesis 2:7, it says he made the first man from the dust of the ground–imagine the mighty hands of God sculpting a human out of clay.  Then, it says, “He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.”  Oh my!  The Creator God who formed a billion trillion stars and carved out the grand canyon, knelt down to earth and breathed His spirit breath into the nostrils of His dirt man!  That is how we–God’s image bearers–came to be.

Made in the Image of God
And when I look at you today, that’s what I see.  I see people who bear the image of God.  I see people God loves so, so dearly.  He loved you so much, as Jeff preached last Sunday, “He sent His one and only Son so that whoever believes in [Him] will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

 

But we don’t always see ourselves the way God sees us.  Even though we hear His Word.  Even though we may have people–preachers or teachers or parents–who tell us: “You're precious.  You're a treasure.  You’re not nothing, you’re something special!”

And the people we serve this week at River of Life, they’re something special too.  That’s why we serve them.  They are made in the priceless image of God.  God loves them so much, He sent Jesus to die on the cross for them too, just like us.  And so we go to serve these precious people and I pray God gives us eyes to see them like God sees them.

And in a few weeks, we will host Vacation Bible School here.  And we have the wonderful privilege on the very first day, to tell the kids how God created us, and how they can find confidence in knowing they are crafted by God’s ingenious design.

Closing
Kids often hear (we all do) we need to make something of ourselves–be smarter, cooler, more successful.  But God’s Word flips that script.  Before we ever tried to prove our worth, God already designed us with purpose and love.  This truth changes everything!  We don’t need to chase approval or compete for value.  We already matter because the creator of the universe formed us intentionally, in His image. 

So you can walk with confidence, knowing you belong, you hold value, and you have been created for something extraordinary.  And whenever you look around and notice how wonderful is the world God created, you can give praise and celebrate God’s goodness and creativity.  You can join with the psalmist “Praise the Lord, everything he has created, everything in all his kingdom!  Let all that I am praise the Lord.” (Psalm 103:22)

So first, I want you to realize your precious worth as a bearer of God’s image.  Let this sink in today, like you never have before.  You are loved.  You are special. You are important to God and this world.  You are a person of priceless worth who bears God’s holy image.

Second, I want you see that the people all around us–the pretty ones, the ugly ones, the young and old, the rich the poor, and even the ones who smell bad, are also made in God’s image. He loves them and wants them in His eternal Kingdom.  And He is sending us to serve some of them this week at River of Life.

Third, I want you to be thinking ahead to VBS.  We will have the great privilege of serving those kids and telling them and showing them that they are precious and special and that God loves them and so do we.  It's something really important we need to do. VBS isn't just a tradition we do every year. And it's not just a way for us to attract more kids, more you families to our church (though that would be nice). But what we're doing is so much more. We get to tell these kids, show them, God loves them and we do too. Not because they're cute. Not because they're smart. Not because they're young. They are special and they are loved because God made them with His own hands, in His image. 

And you need to know that today too. God loves you. Not because of whatbyou have or what you can do or who you know or what family you came from or your history or your heritage or anything like that. God loves you because you bear His image. You're His son, His daughter. You're His masterpiece. And that makes you special.

So, Praise the Lord, everything he has created, everything in all his kingdom.  Let all that you are praise the Lord.

Bless the Lord, O My Soul | A Sermon on Psalm 103:1-5

Introduction
My daughter, Abigail, always says Thanksgiving is here favorite holiday.  The others—especially Christmas, she says—have so much buildup and hype and commercialism.  But then they fail to deliver all they’ve overpromised.  But Thanksgiving is simple:  food, family, and giving thanks.  Abigail has always been wise beyond her years.

As we lead up to Thanksgiving, I want to spend a few weeks considering what it means to give thanks. How can we live a life of gratitude, so that thanks is part of our daily life, not just one day a year?

Gratitude begins when we take time to remember the goodness of God and bless Him for all His benefits. Forgetfulness leads to grumbling; remembrance leads to praise.

Psalm 103:1-5
¹ Let all that I am praise the Lord;
    with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
² Let all that I am praise the Lord;
    may I never forget the good things he does for me.
³ He forgives all my sins
    and heals all my diseases.
⁴ He redeems me from death
    and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
⁵ He fills my life with good things.
    My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!

Tuning Your Soul to God
Psalm 103 is attributed to David.  Now David was king of Israel, but it was a long road to get there.  Remember, David started out as the youngest of a set of brothers.  And when the prophet Samuel came to inspect Jesse's sons to see which one of them would be the next king of Israel, David wasn't even invited to the party.  He was left out in the field to watch the sheep.  Even his own family didn't respect him.

And after David defeated the giant, Goliath, and won battles on behalf of King Saul, Saul was jealous.  David ended up unjustly accused of treason and chased all around the land with Saul trying to kill him.  He slept in caves, suffered deprivation, and had his reputation questioned.  But through it all, David reminded his soul to praise the Lord and not forget all the good things.  That's how David lived his whole life and it kept him so in tune with God that the Scripture says David was a man after God's own heart.  

We must tune our souls to God through gratitude.  Do you remember the old radio with the analogue dial tuners?  You would tune it to a station, but you couldn't just go by the number on the dial.  That would get you close, but you had to listen until the static faded and the signal became clear.  

Gratitude is how we tune in our soul to God.  Remind your soul to give thanks to God.

Beware of Spiritual Amnesia
We all suffer from spiritual amnesia.  Forgetfulness is one of humanity’s spiritual diseases.  The Israelites constantly forgot God’s deliverance.  Even after he miraculously parted the Red Sea so they could escape the Egyptian army on dry ground, and God fed them with mana from heaven and quenched their thirst in the desert with water from a rock, the Israelites stilled complained.  They forgot so quickly.

And it wasn't just in the Old Testament.  Even the 12 Disciples who walked with Jesus in the New Testament and saw His miracles, constantly forgot, doubted, worried, and were afraid.

We forget too.  So we have to make ourselves remember what God has done.  Make a habit of remembering and giving thanks. Some practical things you can do to help:

• Keep a gratitude journal - write down things for which you are thankful throughout your day.  Then go back and read it from time to time--especially when you are feeling down or overwhelmed by your problems.
• Share testimonies - tell people about the good things God has done for you.
• Tell your children or grandchildren what God has done for you.  If you don't have children, share it with other young people in your life.  It will encourage them and you.
• Share daily gratitude post on social media.  A lot of people have been doing this during the month of November, leading up to Thanksgiving.  It is a wonderful, useful, uplifting habit.

Throughout Psalm 103, David lists so many of the things God has done.  We read the beginning of His list in verses 3-5 and these are all things for which we can be thankful too. 

We can be thankful God forgives all our sins.
Remember, you do not deserve God’s mercy. You do not deserve good things. You are a sinner.  You turned away from God and rejected His rightful authority over your life.  You didn't care that He made you for a purpose.  You chose to chase after your own desires.  Some may have even done specific things they know they shouldn't do.  But God, through Christ, has mercy and forgives all our sins.  Be thankful. 

He heals all our diseases.
All healing—whether physical, emotional, of spiritual—comes from God.  We often pray for physical healing.  And often it comes.  Do not forget or take for granted every healing that comes from God--even the small moments of healing.  

Sometimes healing does not come in the way we expect.  But we can still be thankful.  Because, if we are in Christ, God is still working to heal us--even if it doesn't come until the next life.  Keep in mind that all physical healing in this life is only temporary.  Even if you are healed from some terrible disease (like cancer) today, your body will still eventually wear out and die.  So our ultimate hope is in the ultimate healing that comes when we rise from death.  Then our bodies will be made completely whole.  And so, we can be thankful...

He redeem us from death.
Ultimate healing comes when we die and are resurrected with Christ.  Through Christ, we have eternal life with God forever.  And there will be no more sin or sickness or suffering or death (Revelation 21).  So no matter what happens to us or those we love, we can be thankful because Jesus conquered death.  We are victorious when we trust in Christ.  Even death can be cause for thanksgiving for Christians who trust in Jesus Christ.

He crowns us with love and tender mercies.
Though we were sinners, rebels, betrayers, failures, God puts a crown on our heads and calls us His royal sons and daughters.  He loves us like He loves His own Son, Jesus.  He rewards us as though we had followed Him faithfully.  What incredible tender mercies! "God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."  (Romans 5:8) Praise be to God!  

He fills our lives with good things.
Each of us have so many good things in our lives to be thankful for.  We often forget, because we focus on our struggles instead of our blessings.  We may say, “Why do so many ‘bad things’ happening to me?”  We ought, instead, to ask, “Why does God allow anything good to happen to me at all? Sinful wretch that I am!”

But God fills our lives with so many good things!  Let us train ourselves to be thankful.  For in doing so, we tune our hearts to the Lord’s.

Psalm 103:1-2
¹ Let all that we are praise the Lord; with our whole hearts, we will praise His holy name.
² Let all that we are praise the Lord; may we never forget the good things He does for us.

Building a Life of Gratitude
As we head toward Thanksgiving, it’s easy to think of gratitude as a moment—just a day on the calendar with turkey and family and a quick prayer before the meal.  But Psalm 103 reminds us that gratitude is not a moment; it’s a lifestyle.

When David said, “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” he wasn’t waiting for everything in life to be perfect. He was training his heart to remember that, no matter what happens, God is still good.

Gratitude isn’t automatic—it’s a spiritual discipline. It takes practice.
But when we practice gratitude, amazing things happens:

• The things that once weighed us become lighter
• The noise of worry fades
• And the voice of God becomes clear again.

That’s why Thanksgiving shouldn’t just be a holiday—it should be a holy habit.  A life of gratitude is a life that stays tuned to God.

So this week—and in the weeks ahead—let’s do more than count our blessings.  Let’s build our lives around them.  I challenge your to think how you could practice gratitude.  Perhaps you could:

• Begin every day with a simple prayer: “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”
• When you feel overwhelmed, stop and remember one good thing God has done.
• Maybe you want to keep a list or journal of all the things you are thankful for each day.
• Before you fall asleep, whisper a thank-you for His mercy that met you again today.

If we train our hearts to remember—then every day can become a day of thanksgiving.

Closing Prayer
Lord, You have filled our lives with good things—
forgiveness, healing, redemption, love, and mercy.
Teach us to remember.
Teach us to bless Your name not only when life feels full,
but when it feels empty.
Let gratitude shape our words, our homes, and our worship,
so that this Thanksgiving and every day after,
we might live as people whose souls continually say:
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Amen.