This week, we’re starting a brand new series exploring the narrative books of the Old Testament. Our aim is to get a big picture overview of God’s story of redemption leading up to the coming of Jesus Christ. This week, we start at the very beginning of the Old Testament – Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

Unfortunately, these beautiful chapters can be the cause of much confusion and hurt among Christians. Those who think that Genesis 1 teaches a young, 6000 year old, earth find themselves at odds with those who think that Genesis 1 lines up with a far more ancient earth, in the order of millions, perhaps billions, of years.

But what if both groups have been misreading Genesis? What if Genesis 1-2 isn’t trying to teach us anything about the physical construction of material? What if the questions we bring to the text simply aren’t the questions Genesis wants to answer?

Imagine a learner driver going for their final driving test. They get in the car, greet the examiner, adjust their seatbelt, and start driving. Now imagine that the examiner starts quizzing the driver on the mechanics of the car. How was it constructed? Is it a radial engine? What, if it is a manual car, are the different linkages between the clutch pedal and the clutch assembly? Those are great questions to ask of a car mechanic – but a learner driver wouldn’t have come prepared to answer them. They’d have come prepared to drive.

As we approach the Bible, we need to do so on the basis not of what we think it should be saying, but on the basis of what it actually is saying. That sounds simple enough, but what complicates things a bit is the fact that the Bible wasn’t written to us. Although we are among those for whom it was written, we have to
remember that the first recipients were from a different time, and had a different language and culture to us. As the original recipients, the Bible
was written to them in their language, and referencing their cultural assumptions and beliefs. We have to translate not just from Hebrew, but also from the ancient culture they lived in. As a simple example, when the Bible describes Abram’s wife
Sarah as beautiful, we shouldn’t assume that their idea of beauty is necessarily the same as ours.

Coming from a culture where the how questions are most important, we might assume that Genesis will address them. But what if Genesis has something different, more important, to say to us? What did God want both ancient Israel and us to understand?

Today’s Passage: Psalm 84
In 1977, NASA launched a pair of probes into space, on a course, eventually, out of our solar system. On those Voyager craft, they put a golden record (the height of technology!) 30 years later, Annie Druyan, the creative director behind the project, said the following about what she chose to include in The Sounds of Earth:

The first thing I found myself thinking of was a piece by Beethoven from Opus 130, something called the Cavatina Movement … When I [first] heard this piece of music … I thought … Beethoven, how can I ever repay you? What can I ever do for you that would be commensurate with what you’ve just given me? And so, as soon as [my colleague] said, “[This message is] going to last a thousand million years,” I thought of … this great, beautiful, sad piece of music, on which Beethoven had written in the margin … the word sehnsucht, which is German for “longing.” Part of what we wanted to capture in the Voyager message was this great longing we feel.

Longing. I think she was onto something there. Longing is so much of what it means to be human. We are creatures who yearn for more. We are creatures driven by our desires. Ideally, I believe that we were created with a hunger for God. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God “has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” We were made to long for more than this world. We were made to long for God.

C. S. Lewis puts it so well:
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

This weekend, we’re looking at Psalm 84, a beautiful song whose author(s) longed to be with God more than anything else in this world. Their hearts were set on that; being with God was the compass to their lives. Being near to God was their deepest affection.

Our affections are the deep longings of our hearts. They are what drive us. They are the source, ultimately, of what we think, say and do.

Psalm 84 is a beautiful song. And the idea of us being made to long after God is beautiful too. But we are sinners. Our hearts, so often, are not set on God. Our strongest desire – our deepest affection – is not to be with Him. So often, our minds are set on the things of this world. We believe the lie that what God offers us is not for our best. We’ve been doing that since the fall. Why did Eve eat from the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil? Says Genesis 3, because she saw that it was good for food, and pleasing to the eye, and desirable for gaining wisdom (Gen 3:6). She became convinced that it, not God, would best provide for her.

We were made to long. We are always driven by our affections, our deep desires. If we want to be holy, then what we need is for our deepest desire to be for God.

The good news is that our hearts can be rewired. Our affections can be restored to Christ. Oh, that God would captivate us with His goodness – and that we would be transformed by His Spirit.

Today’s Reading: Colossians 2:3-10

It seems like we’re getting more and more scam

Writing to the Colossians, Paul was very aware

But there are many worldviews – many

Everyone worships

But as

But we are

Jesus is God in

Today’s passage: Colossians 1:1-8

This weekend, we’re starting a new series

As with every church in every age, there were

But this letter isn’t a “stern talking to”

Wherever the good news goes, it brings the offer

There are many source of hope offered in the world

No wonder Paul thanked God that the Colossians

Where do you and I find

Today’s reading: Philippians 1:27-2:11

This Saturday just gone was Australia day. For some people, this day will be a painful reminder of the injustices of colonialism. For others, it will be a chance to have a good time with friends and family over food and drinks and perhaps to “ooh!” underneath fireworks. Just in time for Australia day, the government will also recognise the Australian of the year. Last year’s Australian of the year was a professor in quantum mechanics. This year, the West Australian of the year is Craig Challen, a cave diver who helped rescue a boy’s soccer team who were trapped in a cave in Thailand. Such Australians are meant to be people who epitomise what it means to be Australian. They represent the best of what Australia is, and what we want to be known as around the world.

Many of us at Golden Bay Baptist are proudly

But as much as we love our countries, we must

But as of now, we live in a world where God’s

The unity of a church committed to Christ’s

But as citizens of heaven, Paul continues to

Because the Christian

Today’s reading: Colossians 3:11-17

Today’s Passage: John 12:20-36

Over the last three weeks, our morning service has been looking at God’s message through the prophet Hosea. Hosea tells of the greatest love story this universe has ever heard. It tells of God’s love for His people. It’s a story of God’s incredible faithfulness, contrasted with the unbelievable unfaithfulness of us – His people.

Our God is the God who does not easily give up on us. He is certainly the God of justice, but He is also love. Since before the world began, God knew that us humans would rebel against Him. Since before the world began, He planned His great rescue mission. And He put it into action. He chose one man – Abraham – to make Himself known to humanity. He promised that man that through His offspring, all the nations of the world would be blessed.

Later, God called Moses – a descendant of Abraham – to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt. Through Moses, God covenanted – contracted – Himself to His people: they would be His people, and He would be their God. They had the privilege of being His representatives to the world. They experienced God for themselves. But they, like all humans, were still rebels. And rather than representing God to the world, they brought His Name into disrepute among the nations.

But God’s plan was still in motion – because God is faithful to His promises, and because God loves us.

God became human. The One who made the universe stepped into it, born of the virgin Mary – a descendant of Abraham. Jesus announced the availability of the Kingdom of God. He forgave people their sins, and gave us glimpses of what life in God’s Kingdom is like.

And that promise to Abraham – it was being fulfilled.

John tells the story of Jesus – the light of the world – stepping into the darkness of our world. And throughout John’s good news about Jesus, John telegraphs that something big is going to happen. An hour was coming. Jesus’ time was coming.

And the hour starts here, in John 12. It starts with some Greeks arriving and asking to see Jesus. These may not have been literally people from Greece: Greeks could mean simply that they weren’t Jewish. I suspect that these were God-fearers: non-Jews who feared God, and devoted themelves to Him, but who weren’t willing to become Jewish. They were the religious hangers-on; people who saw that there was something real in Judaism, but who couldn’t bring themselves to commit completely. (And becoming Jewish wasn’t necessarily all that easy… it even involved surgery!)

It’s possible that these men had been around in the temple area when Jesus had cleared it. Mark 11:15-18 tells the story. One of the things Jesus highlighted at that time was how God’s Temple was to be called a house of prayer for all nations. Perhaps – and this is pure speculation – that had piqued the curiosity of these men. Certainly, the temple wasn’t a very inclusive space. Non-Jews could access the outer court of the Gentiles. But going past the little wall to the next courtyard – that was a capital offense.

They wanted to see Jesus. And for Jesus, that was the sign that the hour had come. The hour for Him to be lifted up, drawing all men to Himself. The hour for Him to cast out Satan – the prince of this world.

The hour for the dividing wall between humanity and God to be torn down by His sacrificial death. The hour for sin to be dealt with. The hour for God’s faithful love to pay the utmost price to win us back to Himself.

The hour when the dark struck at the light.

Not realising that The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John 1:5) Jesus died – but death could not hold Him.

Today’s Passage: Hosea 3

Hosea’s life isn’t, perhaps, typical of what you’d expect from a holy man. When he got married, he married not one of the nice girls in town, but one of the prostitutes. And although she stayed around for a bit, it wasn’t too long before she had walked out on him. She ended up with another man – perhaps a slave, or perhaps with debts to him that she couldn’t ever pay off. She was trapped.

And then God told Hosea to go and love her again.

Why on earth would Hosea take her back? This woman had hurt him. She had scorned him. She had, in all probability, embarrassed him. Sure, he would be telling everyone about how his family situation was meant to represent the situation between God and his people. But it still must have hurt – like it always does when someone treats your love as worthless.

If you were in Hosea’s shoes – with an adulterous spouse who has finally left us for another – what would you do? Some have, perhaps, experienced something similar. I recently heard someone say that if their spouse had an affair, that would be it; that there could be no forgiveness. I get that. It takes repeated decisions to love for a relationship to last. But when the relationship is broken by betrayal, the cost to restore it is huge. Many people think that they simply can’t afford the amount of love required – or don’t want to risk their love again.

But God told Hosea to love Gomer again. Hosea – like us – was called to live his life in imitation of God and His love for us, His people. Despite God’s faithful love for us, our love for him tends to be fickle and easily drawn away. Hosea 3:1 contrasts God’s love for His people to their love for… raisin cakes. The contrast isn’t even between God’s love and something amazing…. it’s between God’s amazing, unending love and a small, temporary pleasure. Why would God love such worthless lovers? Why wouldn’t He just give up on us and move on?

Because He loves us.

Because His love is grounded not in us, the object of His love, but in who He is. God is love.

And there is a cost. There always us.

And there is change. And there is a new start.

And there is hope for you and I.