Stories of God’s Creativity and Love of Beauty

—God’s character revealed through stories

• Andrew Fountain – Oct 31, 2021

 
 
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God’s Creativity

• God loves Complexity
• God loves Diversity
• God loves Beauty
• God loves to hide beauty for us to find
• We honour him by searching for it and making it known

Creation

• “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31)
• “And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight” (Gen 2:9)
• “And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there” (Gen 2:12)

1. The heavens declare the glory of God;
         the sky displays his handiwork.
2. Day after day it speaks out;
         night after night it reveals his greatness. (Ps 19)

God’s Sculpture

• The LORD God formed [lit. sculpted] the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Gen 2:7)
• Every animal and bird is “sculpted” by God (Gen 2:19)
• “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; [lit. unsculpted, in the womb]
  the days that were sculpted for me,
  when as yet there was none of them.” (Ps 139:16)
• “The sea is his, for he made it.
  His hands sculpted the dry land.” (Psa 95:5)

Wisdom: Hokmah

• Very interesting Hebrew word, hokmah, which means both wisdom and artistic skill
• So in Hebrew you would say “There is such wisdom in that guitar playing, and singing”
• Painting shows wisdom, and photography, weaving, and even construction/rennovation
• “The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
  by understanding he established the heavens;” Prov 3:19

Exodus 28

2. You must make holy garments for your brother Aaron, for glory and for beauty.
3. You are to speak to all who are specially skilled, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, so that they may make Aaron’s garments to set him apart to minister as my priest.…
5. The artisans are to use the gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen.
6. They are to make the ephod of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twisted linen, the work of an artistic designer.

Exodus 31

1. The LORD said to Moses,
2. “See, I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah,
3. and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding, with knowledge and all craftsmanship,
4. to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze,
5. in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft.

Exodus 35, 36

25. Every woman who was wise hearted spun with her hands and brought what she had spun, blue, purple, or scarlet yarn, or fine linen,
26. and all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats’ hair.…
35. He has filled them with wisdom to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue…
2. And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the LORD had put wisdom, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.

1 Peter 3

3. Let your beauty not be external — the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes —
4. but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.

How to be creative like God

1. Concentrate on being filled with the Spirit
2. Allow his beauty to fill you and flow through you
3. Don’t look down on enjoying things. Create beautiful things!
4. But the most important way of reflecting God’s image of beauty is in who you are as you are filled with Jesus.