Today—as you know is the first Sunday of a new year…2010. It’s amazing to me how years seem to pass by so quickly. Today also marks the beginning of a new sermon series that will take us 14 weeks to complete. 14 weeks seems like a long time—but I’m sure it will pass very quickly as well.

We’re calling this series—The Road to the Resurrection. 13 weeks from today we’ll be celebrating Easter. We’ll be celebrating the fact that on the third day following the crucifixion the tomb where the body of Christ was laid…was empty. Celebrating the fact that Jesus said it would be because He was going to rise from the dead.

We celebrate the resurrection because the Bible tells us, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith…you are still in your sins” (1 Cor 15:14,17).

In this series of messages—we’re going to trace a line from Creation to the resurrection. The series will cover large portions of Scripture at times and we’ll not have the luxury of swimming in the deep end of the pool, so to speak, as we pass over hundreds of years from week to week.

Yet—our hope and our prayer is this…when we celebrate that empty tomb on April 4, 2010, we’ll not be thinking in our mind, “What went wrong? Or Why did this happen?” Instead—we’ll be singing “Praise God—our Savior lives!”  

Church, our thoughts will be on the fact that God not only cares about His people…He has the ability to do something about their problem. Sin. We’ll be thinking about promises made and promises kept. The promise in Genesis 3:15 that someone would come and the fact that the promise was kept in Luke 2:10. We’ll be thinking—if God can do this there’s no reason to believe He can’t save us from our sins and see us all the way home to heaven.

For us to begin this journey we must make a right turn at the entrance marked Creation in the Bible and proceed from there. Notice if you will from Genesis 1&2 that our being here is not the result of random chance…we’re here by design. And, furthermore, God’s design demonstrates several attributes about Him that we need to know in order for us to truly celebrate on Easter.

1. God’s presence. In the beginning the Bible says (Gen 1:1). In the beginning of what we know as time and space…God was already there. The Bible speaks of God as eternal. He’s always been and He will always be. The eternal God is our refuge (Deut 33:27). His presence in the beginning of what we know as time speaks to the fact that He’ll be there at the end of what we know as time.

2. God’s plan. As you read through the Creation account here in Genesis 1&2…it easy to see there’s a plan. The plan is carefully laid out and put in place. Reading through Genesis 1 you discover the progression of God’s plan requires 7 days in order to complete. Everything happens as planned and right on schedule. No delays, no do over’s, no deadline not met.

3. God’s power. We read here in Genesis 1:2 that the earth was formless and empty…darkness prevailed. This was true until God began to speak creation into existence. Over and over again in this chapter we read “And God said.” When He did…it happened. That’s power…Amen.

4. God’s purpose. When we read through these chapters we see that God’s purpose is multi-faceted. Let’s look at just a few aspects of His purpose.

a. His purpose includes a place. God creates a land. A place that’s established by clear boundaries. (Gen 2:10-15)

b. His purpose includes provision. The land He created was given the ability to sustain life. (Gen1:29-30)

c. His purpose involves a partnership. Living things were created according to their kind. But—Adam had no suitable helper…until God created Eve. (Gen 1:18-25)

d. His purpose involves pro-creation. God’s plan was for both man and animals to be fruitful and multiply in order to fill His creation. (Gen 1:22,28)

e. His purpose requires purity. Purity is a lack of personal knowledge concerning evil. Man was to live in the land—work and worship in complete obedience. (Gen 2:15-17)

5. God’s promise. When you look at the overall message of chapters 1&2 you’ll find it divides into 3 primary themes. They are 1) God, 2) man, and 3) the land. This message and these themes are repeated throughout the pages of Scripture. A message that will ultimately come to fruition in Revelation 21:1-3.

Unfortunately though—you and I know that several things transpire between Genesis 2 and Revelation 21. Many of these things will be the subjects we discuss along the way as we travel the road to the resurrection.

It’s clear from all that happens in Genesis 1&2 that God intends to dwell among His people. Not only dwell among them—but to commune with them as well. Events that take place in Genesis 3 make it impossible for God to dwell among His people. Sin enters Eden and man is separated from fellowship with God. This will be for all eternity unless someone comes to reverse the curse that man brought upon himself through disobedience.

That someone is God’s one and only Son...Jesus Christ. We’ll spend more time looking at how He does this in week 13 of our journey but, for now it’s important to know that without Him and what He did…we would have no hope of communion with God. The bread and the juice that we’re about to take remind us of His work.