Following Jesus Son of God …

• We need to understand how “very good” God’s creation was on Day Six.

• We need to understand that God decided to create humans in his image and after his likeness.

• We need to understand what an exalted position God gave his human creation in doing this.

• We need to understand the context this provides for our salvation.

Paradise. Then Paradise Lost.

Sin does not come onto the scene in Genesis until chapter three, but we have much to learn in the two earlier chapters about our desperate predicament as humans occupying the planet and the depths of our sin.

As in … Paradise and Paradise Lost.

As we see what we have lost. As we understand better God’s original gift to humans in creation. Now we may realize that we really do need to let God instruct us from his word as to our need for a Savior (and for everything else in life).

For those who are lost and need to be found, Genesis is absolutely foundational to understanding God, ourselves and the world in which we live. Undermine Genesis as the exact account that God chose to give us, and you have undermined your ability to believe in God as he defines and describes himself.

You choose. You lose. Pick apart his message and miss his message and miss the abundance of life that God offers through Jesus Christ.

Message Title: The First Five Days of Creation!

Message Text: Genesis 1:1-23 & Selected

Created in the image of God.

• What does it matter? Well, it seems to matters a lot.
• Experience Day One of creation as you look up at the night sky and see the glory of God. You get a glimpse of Day Two as you stand on the shore of the ocean and hear the roaring and crashing of the waves. Day Three brings grass, flowers, trees, all plant life. Take it all in now as you smell freshly cut grass, spring flowers and corn growing. Observe the stars scattered over the heavens and declare his praise. Go for a walk under a beautiful moon or drink in the beauty of his blue sky and feel the warmth and life of his great light which he brought about on Day Four. Listen to the music of Day Five as birds tweet, coo, shriek and caw. Or be captured by the performance of an eagle in the sky or a great whale on the open sea. Day Six introduces lions roaring and elephants trumpeting. All the land creatures. Foxes showing off their speed and oxen their strength.
• Travel this earth and see the the uncharted territories brought about by the word of God, the wonders of unpolluted oceans, and green, vibrant forests alive with beasts of every variety. Explore the universe in all of it’s stunning immensity and variety of color and shape and form. And marvel at the greatness of our God.
• But if you want to experience the peak, the pinnacle, the summit, the top, the zenith, the apogee, the apex, the height, the crown, the climax …
• If you want to travel to the summit and the spire of God’s creation to catch a glimpse of God’s greatest work, then I invite you to the afternoon of Day Six, where God took council with himself and decided to make humans in his image, and after his likeness.

Message Title: Days 6 & 7!

Message Text: Genesis 1:24-2:4 & Selected

• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 3 – Days 6 and 7 : Genesis 1-24-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 041716 AM STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 3 – Days 6 and 7 : Genesis 1-24-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 041716 AM STUDY SHEET TWO
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 3 – Days 6 and 7 : Genesis 1-24-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 041716 AM STUDY SHEET THREE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 3 – Days 6 and 7 : Genesis 1-24-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 041716 AM STUDY SHEET FOUR

Paradise. Then Paradise Lost.

Sin does not come onto the scene in Genesis until chapter three, but we have much to learn in the two earlier chapters about our desperate predicament as humans occupying the planet and the depths of our sin.

As in … Paradise and Paradise Lost.

As we see what we have lost. As we understand better God’s original gift to humans in creation. Now we may realize that we really do need to let God instruct us from his word as to our need for a Savior (and for everything else in life).

For those who are lost and need to be found, Genesis is absolutely foundational to understanding God, ourselves and the world in which we live. Undermine Genesis as the exact account that God chose to give us, and you have undermined your ability to believe in God as he defines and describes himself.

You choose. You lose. Pick apart his message and miss his message and miss the abundance of life that God offers through Jesus Christ.

Read the following by Kent Hughes and be amazed at the power and wisdom of God!

• God had formed the world in three days, and now in three parallel days he had wonderfully filled it with the light of the sun and moon and stars and trees and plants and creatures of the deep and the winged creatures of the sky and a zoo of wondrous earth-treading beasts.

  The seas literally swarmed with living things—the monsters of the deep. There were whales, sharks, leviathan (crocodiles); swordfish reigned amidst schools of tuna and dolphin and thousands of lesser colorful finned creatures—many unknown until the twentieth century. And above, an ornithologist’s delight filled the skies—eagles, cormorants, ravens, gulls, geese, ducks, woodpeckers, finches, cardinals, indigo buntings. The skies and seas teemed with astonishing variety, all from the mind of God. The waving, undulating beauties seen first by the sea diver and the gliding, iridescent arrays of the heavens exist because of God’s thought and at his pleasure—“And God saw that it was good.”

  [Hughes, R. K. (2004). Genesis: beginning and blessing (p. 34). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.]

Message Title: The First Five Days of Creation!

Message Text: Genesis 1:1-23 & Selected

• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET TWO
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET THREE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET FOUR
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET FIVE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 2 – The First Five Days of Creation : Genesis 1-1-24 : ffc : dave scott : 041016 AM STUDY SHEET SIX

I can hardly wait to see what God is going to do in my life, and yours, through this Genesis study. What a challenge, but also I believe God has impressed on me the great blessing in that very challenge as he speaks to us in this essential book.

I want you to know this morning that you have every good and excellent reason to believe and trust God’s Holy Book the Bible!

From beginning to end. From creation to the end of days on this planet. God’s word. Believe it. Trust it. Believe God. Trust God.

When he begins his Book: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Then count on it. Let no one, absolutely no one, undermine your faith in a God who can do exactly what he says in his word.

Message Title: “In the Beginning, God Created the Heavens and the Earth!”

Message Text: Genesis 1:1-2

God gives us the choice. It has been that way since the very first humans walked the planet. Believe God and trust him or believe the lie.

For decades now many professing believers in Christ have listened to those whom God calls fools when it comes to the creation account.

• (Psalm 14:1 ESV) The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.

For too long many sincere believers have cowered before the voices of “reason” and “science” even though the very ones defining reason and science have turned their backs on their Creator. For the sake of prestige and place in this world, too many have listened to those who are wise only in their own eyes.

• (Romans 1:21–22 ESV) For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

But not from this pulpit. God speaks very clearly the things that are necessary for us to hear and believe.

God, and God alone, is Creator and Redeemer!

Message Title: “In the Beginning God Created the Heavens and the Earth!”

Message Text: Genesis 1:1-2 & Selected

• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth : Genesis 1-1-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 040316 AM STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth : Genesis 1-1-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 040316 AM STUDY SHEET TWO
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth : Genesis 1-1-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 040316 AM STUDY SHEET THREE
• PDF GENESIS MESSAGE 1 – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth : Genesis 1-1-2-4 : ffc : dave scott : 040316 AM STUDY SHEET FOUR

“Why can’t we all just get along?”

• Why can’t we find the things that we share in common as brothers and sisters in Christ and work together? We agree on so many things. Why can’t we minister to the world from this common ground that we share? It just makes sense. Why draw denominational or doctrinal distinctions?
• Do you know what is so absurd about that rationale? We disagree with them on the things that the Apostle Paul tells us are “of first importance.”
• It is true that as the liberal, false teachers point out, we do have much in common. But what we do not have in common is what the Apostle Paul delivers to us as the things “of first importance.” Think about it. The issue is not the common things, but the great divide on who Jesus Christ is, exactly what he has accomplished at the Cross of Calvary and the authoritative voice of the word of God. The distinction should not be drawn by what we have in common but by the huge, glaring differences in our beliefs on Jesus Christ and the word of God.
• I heard on the radio again this past week a liberal church in the area: “Come join us for Easter and celebrate with us the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
• Face value that may sound okay. We have that in common with that church. We too next week are going to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• But that is where the common ground ends because we will connect that resurrection to Christ’s death for our sins which they no longer believe is of first importance. And we will connect his resurrection with his literal, physical death according to the Scriptures. And we will not come up with various theories that explain away the authoritative instruction of the Word of God concerning sin. We will connect this celebration to Jesus Christ dying for our sins, my sins, your sins, redemption by his blood for the forgiveness of sins.
• And we will connect our celebration with the physical, bodily resurrection of our Lord and his appearance to over 500 people according to the Scriptures. And we will continue to hold the absolute authority of the teaching of God’s word that this resurrection provides the only way of salvation, the only way for us to go to the Father. The only way. That there is no other name to call on, no other religion that escapes the tentacles of some form of works salvation formed by and based upon the reasoning of sinful, fallen man.
• So, yes, we are very narrow in our view of salvation. Our Lord tells us this morning to: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Message Title: Build on the Rock!

Message Text: Matthew 7:13-29

Life or destruction! You choose.

• Narrow Gate: One way for life.
• Wide Gate: Many ways (that are really the same way) for death.

Only one way. Only one name. Only one truth. His name is Jesus.

Narrow? Exclusive? Only one way? Are you kidding me? Nope. But it’s God, not me anyway. Neither my idea nor plan of salvation for this fallen planet.

God’s idea, God’s way!

• (Isaiah 55:9 ESV) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This week in Matthew 7, Jesus Christ speaks of a way that leads to life versus a way that leads to destruction. Guess which way most people take?

The way of death!

Why? Because our way not only “seems right” to us, but in our minds it “is right.” (See study sheet for Scripture references.)

Message Title: Build on the Rock!

Message Text: Matthew 7:13-29

• PDF Building on the Rock : Matthew 7-13-29 : ffc : dave scott : 032016 AM STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF Building on the Rock : Matthew 7-13-29 : ffc : dave scott : 032016 AM STUDY SHEET TWO

• That is what the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion, is about. Remembering the gospel. Every time we take the bread and the cup we remember and we proclaim the Lord’s death.
• In our text this morning we find Jesus, the light of the world, facing the deep darkness of humanity and the spiritual forces of wickedness. Through the dark night, both literally and spiritually, through betrayal and disappointment, isolation and loneliness, and sadness to the point of death, our Lord confronted the land of darkness spoken of by the Prophet Isaiah.
• Alone. No one beside him. The fury of the battle between the deep darkness and the Great Light had scattered his disciples like terrified children.
• So what message did Jesus have for these men who had run for their lives but would soon return in great love and faithfulness and devotion?
• His message to them: This is all you have. This is all you need. Now and in the centuries to come: this is all you have, this is all you need. The blood of the covenant. His blood poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. They were to build on the finished work of Jesus Christ and nothing else.

The Blood Promise!

Solid Rock (or sinking sand … our choice)!

• My hope is built on nothing less, Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
• On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.

My Faith Has Found A Resting Place

• My faith has found a resting place, Not in device or creed, I trust the ever-living One, His wounds for me shall plead.
• I need no other argument, I need no other plea, It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me.

What is your hope built on? Jesus gives us a “blood promise” in our text this morning. He makes a new covenant and signs the agreement with his blood.

What work could a human ever add to that?

Message Title: The Blood Promise!

Message Text: Matthew 26:17-56

• PDF The Blood of the Promise : Matthew 26-17-29 : ffc : dave scott : 031316 AM STUDY SHEET ONE
• PDF The Blood of the Promise : Matthew 26-17-29 : ffc : dave scott : 031316 AM STUDY SHEET TWO