In the Beginning

Transcript:

In the last video we discussed the Pixar story structure, and in this one we’re going to go ahead and start applying it to the Bible.

Every good story has a beginning, middle, and end. So let’s start at the beginning.

Go ahead and open your Bible to the very first page – Genesis 1. Genesis 1:1-5 says,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that 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.”

Many of you will be familiar with this story of Creation. We just read about the first day, and the passage goes on to explain how God spent 6 days creating the earth and all that is in it. Each day God speaks and creates something new, and each day He sees that it is good.

We’re going to skip down to the end of the week here, to day 6, and we will pick back up in verse 26 where it says:

“Then God said, “Let us make man 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.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

God creates this big beautiful world, but what is the crowning achievement of His creation? It was mankind – male and female. That’s you, that’s me, that’s your neighbors. Did you notice what God created us for?

God said His creation was “very good” and we were given responsibilities. We were created to rule alongside God. To have “dominion” over His creation.

Seems like a pretty sweet gig, right?

And not only did God create the perfect place for us to live, not only did he invite us to rule over Creation, but He even invited Adam and Eve to have an intimate relationship with Him. We see later in the Genesis story that God himself would actually walk through the Garden of Eden and spend time with His creation. It was visible, it was physical, and it was personal.

Right from the start you can see that we were created for Glory. We were placed into a luscious garden full of beauty and delicious food. Man was given woman, and together they became one flesh and knew intimacy without pride or malice or selfishness. Mankind was given dominion and invited to rule alongside God.

So let’s start filling this in for the Bible.
1. Once Upon a Time there was a man and woman named Adam and Eve. And they had it all.
2. Every day, they would spend time with God, work the garden, and rule over Creation.

So things were pretty good! We’ve established the beginning pieces of a story. But as you might recall, stories have an inciting incident that we describe in our structure by saying

3. Until One day…

In the next topic, we’re going to take a look at Genesis 3 and see what goes wrong. Before you watch the next video, make sure you take the time to read Genesis 3.