Aug. 16, 2026

What if everything you needed to know about God was contained in the very first four words of the Bible?

Pastor Dave kicked off a new twelve-week series in the book of Genesis this week, starting exactly where the Bible starts: "In the beginning, God." Before diving into Genesis 1, he paused to address the congregation directly about the upcoming primary election, making clear that Faith Community exists to proclaim Jesus, not to endorse candidates. "I encourage you to go and vote. I encourage you to pray and allow the Holy Spirit to guide you," he said, "but you will not see us promoting any slate of candidates. That's not what we're about here."

God Is - Reading Genesis 1:1–2, Pastor Dave made his first point simply: God is. Not was, not will be. He pushed back on the confidence of atheism with a bit of math. If everyone in the room combined their knowledge, he said, it might amount to ten percent of everything there is to know. "How arrogant of us then to say there is no God, because there's ninety percent out there that we don't even know." Once someone accepts that God exists and created everything, the rest of Scripture stops being so hard to believe. "If God created the Red Sea, certainly He can split the Red Sea, don't you think?"

Elohim and the Trinity - Pastor Dave pointed out that the Hebrew name for God here, Elohim, is a plural noun, an early hint of the Trinity that becomes clearer later when God says, "Let us make man in our image." He held up his own example to make God's power tangible: imagine if he walked in claiming his iPhone had simply appeared on his nightstand after some thunder and lightning. "That takes a lot of faith to believe that, doesn't it?" A designed thing implies a designer. Creation is no different.

Walking Through the Days - He then moved briskly through the six days of creation, from light before the sun even existed on day one, to the sky and land on days two and three, to the sun, moon, and stars governing time on day four, to sea and air creatures on day five, and finally land animals and humanity, made in God's image, on day six. Day seven, he noted, gives us the gift of rest.

God Is Present, Sovereign, and Good - Pastor Dave emphasized that God wasn't distant from His creation. He was present in it, and He still is. God's sovereignty means He never asked anyone's opinion about how He made anything, and His goodness shows up in things as simple as good food and mountain views. "Wyoming is poverty with a view," he joked, before turning serious: God didn't have to give us the ability to enjoy beauty. He chose to.

Christ Was Always the Plan - Perhaps the sermon's most striking point: Jesus wasn't God's backup plan after the fall. Quoting Revelation 13:8, Pastor Dave reminded the church that Christ was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Salvation was never an afterthought. He closed by reading Colossians 1:13–16, describing Christ as "the image of the invisible God," through whom all things were created and for whom all things exist, then reminded the congregation that being made in God's image, as spirit, soul, and body, is both a privilege and a responsibility. "Wherever you go, you're carrying the image of God into that environment."