I would encourage you to turn to Genesis chapter 1.
It is literally found on page one if you're using one of our
Bibles. If you're using a different
Bible, I don't know, it's probably somewhere in the area
of 1. But you never know how they
number Bibles these days. So 21st century Christians
neglect to consider the context in which Scripture was written.
Scripture wasn't written in a vacuum.
Genesis was written well before recorded history began, actually
nearly 2000 years after the beginning of recorded history in
Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.
Now, when we neglect to remember the culture in which the word
was written, we start to impose our own ideas onto the text
rather than allowing the text to communicate to us.
But Frank Turek and Norman Geisler, in their book I Don't
Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, set forth the notion
that the Bible isn't trying to answer questions of math and
science. It doesn't aim to answer
technical or mathematical descriptions of natural
phenomena. Scripture is more concerned with
life's bigger questions of origins, purposes, morality, and
destiny. So would you please stand this
morning as we read from Genesis 1 verses one through 13.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was was over the and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be
lights and lights. And God saw that the light was
good. And God separated the light from
the darkness. God called the lights day and
the darkness he called nights. And there was evening and there
was morning the first day. And God said, let there be an
expense in the midst of the waters and let it separate the
waters from the waters. And God made the expanse and
separated the waters that were under the expanse from the water
or above the expanse. And it was so.
And God called the expense heaven.
There was evening, and there was morning the second day.
And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered
together into one place, and let the dry land appear.
And it was so. God called the dry land earth.
And the waters that were gathered together he called
seas. And God saw that it was good.
And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation yielding seed
and fruit trees bearing fruit, and which is their seed, and
each according to its kind on the earth.
And it was so the earth brought forth according to their own
kinds and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each
according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
And there was evening, and there was morning the third day you
may be seated. Now, if you do the math, you see
that we're doing 13 verses this morning and you start counting
chapters in Genesis. You might not like what how that
looks. We're not going to be in this
for two years, but we will be in it for a while.
Last week I mentioned being confronted by my humanities
teacher regarding the Epic of Gilgamesh.
This encounter had left me dumbfounded because I was
completely ignorant of the reality and context in which
Genesis was written. I couldn't fathom that other
people had flood stories. I'd never heard that before.
In the years since then, I've come to realize that many, dare
I say most, peoples of the world have flood stories as part of
their origins. Many ancient Near Eastern
people's stories have accounts with some similar ideas to
Genesis. However, that is not to say that
Genesis is stealing from the Babylonians or their other
neighbors. Rather, in Genesis Moses is
taking a pre-existing genre that that of the origin stories and
he's writing of how creation really came to be.
It's sort of a rebuttal to the creation mythologies that
existed in the ancient Near East.
And it all starts with the first few words and verses one and
two. In the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and
void and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit
of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
So here we are at the beginning. This is the foundation of
creation. This is seemingly before even
time has begun. There's the earth.
No one knows how long the earth has has been in this state.
The text actually doesn't tell us, but it's empty and wild in
the Hebrew indicates that it's chaotic.
The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians believe that
everything was in a chaotic water state before the ordering
of the universe. The act of creation is about
bringing order to the chaos, to what God has already put in
place. And we look at this version of
of the earth, it doesn't resemble what we think of today,
right? There's no form to it.
It's empty, it's dark, and there's a deep abyss.
But God's spirit is hovering over the water.
The earth has already been formed, but the spirit is
standing by. He's on call to to finish this
work. Now, who was there at the
beginning when it says that God created the heavens and the
earth? What exactly does that mean?
First of all, the word Moses used for God is elohim, which to
be honest, is a fairly complicated word, but we're not
going to go into all that this morning.
At its most basic form, Elohim means that means God, and it's
plural. There's been thousands of years
of debate over this, but the fact that Elohim is a plural
word doesn't seem accidental to me.
As God is a plurality, 3 persons in one Godhead, we naturally
understand verse one to refer to the Father.
Then in verse 2, we're told that the ruach of God, the the breath
of God, the Spirit of God was over the face of the deep.
Psalm one O 430 corroborates interpreting this breath to be
the actual Holy Spirit. Psalm one O 430 reads when you
send forth your spirit, they that is God's various creations,
they are created and you renew the face of the ground.
So there and then there are three passages that people hold
up as excelling all others in terms of Christology.
That is the study and learning about Jesus Christ.
Those passages are John 1, Colossians 1 and Philippians 2.
Well here we see that Jesus is mentioned in two of those 3
passages as being part of the creative creating process.
John One says all things were made through him, and without
Him was not anything made that was made.
The Colossians 116 reads For by him all things were created in
heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether Thrones or
dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were
created through him and for Him. So these two verses plainly tell
us that Jesus created all things.
And then Paul expands on the statement to say it wasn't just
the physical world, the things that you can see that Jesus
created, but it was also the spiritual world that Jesus
created. He created that which is in the
invisible realm as well. So Jesus was there at the very
beginning, complicit and involved in creating.
I think it's important to say that even the word creation
denotes intentionality. This isn't randomness, things
magically and without intention popping into place.
The word Bara speaks to the creative act.
It's like an artist creating something and it denotes
creating out of nothing. Creation, ex.
Niolo. When this word is used, it's
always used to speak of God's activity.
When God acts, he acts with intention.
And when we talk about the creation of the world and the
cosmos coming into existence, a system of thoughts has has
arisen in the sciences. Intelligent design.
Now, most people who hold to intelligent design believe in
God, but there are some who hold to intelligent design but don't
believe in God. How that is, I don't truly know.
But intelligent design sets forth the notion that this world
was not brought into into existence simply by chance, but
someone or something with intelligence intentionally
created it and designed it. You look at the world and it
doesn't look random, but it looks intentional.
In the 4th century BC, Aristotle set forth the notion of the
unmoved mover. The unmoved mover is the one who
who brings it all into being, the force that causes all things
to move to function as intended. And the unmoved mover is not
himself moved or changed. The unmoved mover is the
necessary first cause of all that is in the world.
And we understand who the unmoved mover is.
Of course. It's God.
He's the one who caused and brought it all into being
because He was there before it all began.
So God had set the foundation for the creation.
The earth was ready to be formed.
So then, so then God frames creation.
Now, as with anything you do, you need a structure to to build
upon. There must be a foundation,
something on which everything else is dependent.
So here on day one, we see the very beginnings of the
framework, and on day one God created light.
I know everybody's like we learned this in Sunday school,
but there's so much stuff here. God said, let there be light and
there was light. And God saw that the light was
good and God separated the light from the darkness.
God called the light day and the darkness He called night.
And there was evening and there was morning the first day.
Now remember the previous verse, Darkness was over the face of
the deep. There's there's no light at this
point in time. Everything was dark, but God
spoke into the darkness and he said let there be light.
At his very word the light came to be and I'd venture to say it
was probably God's glory as the sun wasn't even created until
the 4th day. Now if you're like me, you
learned in I think it was high school, unless it was in that
same humanities class that the Egyptians worshipped the sun God
RA or Ray, whichever pronunciation.
As Yahweh creates lights, he's setting himself up as the object
of worship. The ancients worship celestial
objects, but here Moses is showing that there's no
autonomous sun or moon that's worthy of worship.
God's sovereignty over creation should drive people to worship
Him instead of the objects of creation.
This is only appropriate when we consider what John writes in
Revelation 22 verses 3 through 5.
Time as we know it has come to an end and and the vision John
has is this. No longer will there be anything
accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it.
This is where we're in the new heavens, the new earth.
And his servants will worship Him.
They will see his face and His name will be on their foreheads,
and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp
or sun, for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign
forever and ever. So here God is the source of
light in the new heavens. God is the source of light and,
and this seems to be what's happening here on day one.
God is the source of light and, and God saw this and he said
that it was good. Now as God separates the light
from the dark, He gives them names or or labels, day and
night. When we label something or give
it a name, it helps to take away its power over us.
The dark is no longer seen as a threat, but now it has a name,
night. And with the night comes the
arrival of the first day of all time.
The Jewish day, you will recall, begins as sundown.
Hence, Moses writes, there was evening and there was morning
the first day. But now we get to a sticky part.
What's a day? Is it 24 hours?
That's our understanding of it, right?
Or is the text speaking metaphorically of an epoch of
time, a long period of time for each day?
Well, people have been discussing this for a long time,
and there are two basic thoughts on on what a day is.
First of all, not surprisingly, there's the literal 24 hour day.
This is what we would call the the plain reading of the text
over and over again throughout the creation process.
We see there was evening and there was morning, and then an
ordinal number is assigned to that day, first, second, third,
and so on. And the belief here is that when
scripture says the first day, it means it was literally the very
first time that the earth spun around completely around its
axis. And then by the end of the week
you would naturally have the Earth having completed 7 full
rotations around its NS axis. Obviously if one holds this
viewpoint, then there are other beliefs that necessarily go
along with a literal 24 hour view, such as the age of the
earth. The literal approach posits that
the earth is approximately 6 to 10,000 years old and this
position is known as Young Earth Creationism.
Today's biggest advocate for this position is Ken Ham and his
organization Answers in Genesis. If you have been to the Creation
Museum or to the Ark, you are no doubt familiar with Ken Ham and
his work. The second idea in which we call
a theory is the Day Age Theory, the day age theory.
Now, the day age interpretation posits that God created over a
much longer period of time than than six days, and within this
framework, each day is interpreted to be an epoch of
time. At a basic level, there's an
attempt to reconcile what the observer views in the world of
science with what they read on the pages of Scripture, although
of course, scientists will lie on both ends of the spectrum.
Most day age theorists believe the Earth is anywhere from 5 to
14 billion years old. To be honest, I don't know how
we really measure that stuff. I can't comprehend that.
However, this does not necessarily mean that the day
age theorists holds to an evolutionary view of humanity's
origins. They will always come back to
the fact that God created it all, regardless of the means
that he used. Even the fossil record does not
indicate an actual transitional form between apes and humanity,
and this position is somewhat obviously referred to as Old
Earth creationism. Today's biggest advocates for
Old Earth creationism are Hugh Ross.
I think he catapulted it into popularity a couple decades ago.
A few decades ago, as well as the website biolagos.org.
Now when we talk in theology circles, we'll say something
like he's an old earther or he's a young earther.
It's important to say that throughout history, both sides
have garnered the supports of committed and highly revered and
respected Christians. This may rock your world, but
that's the reality. Each side has their arguments
and both positions have issues that they need to overcome, but
contention for each viewpoint is that God created and what we
read in Genesis is true. Now I hadn't planned to do this,
but I know people are going to be like, so Pastor, where are
you? So I grew up in a staunchly 24
hour view, held on to that for a long time in seminary.
I did a research paper on the day Yom, read some books,
started to make a shift when I was ordained, I was ordained
defending a more day age position then earlier this year.
And I've, I've held that loosely, I should say very
loosely, shift 01 day. I can be literal 24 hours
another day. Oh wow, things look old.
I don't, I don't. But earlier this year I began
shifting back to a a literal 24 hour period.
But the point here is that God created the the person who holds
to the day age position. Believes that God created.
We're not talking Darwinian evolution because no time in all
the world can make that happen. And you'll see that here from
the text as we continue through our study.
So whatever your view, it's important to remember that
famous quote in Essentials Unity, the essentials of the
Gospel in non Essentials liberty.
So this is one of those non essential points.
But in all things charity, the age of the earth and how it came
to be is a secondary issue. What matters most is your
perspective on the Creator. While the lights and darkness
are literal, there's also a metaphorical meaning to be
understood. Here we see that the dark is in
some sense bad, right? The text kind of indicates that
the light was called good, but the darkness presents certain
challenges which the reader must overcome.
Throughout Scripture will routinely see a conflict between
the kingdoms of light and dark. Darkness is dangerous opposition
and hostility and the light stands in contrast to the
darkness and and we have a king who sovereignly stand against
the darkness of Satan's working in the world.
So that's the first day. Verses 6 through 8 reveal to us
the second day. God said let there be an expanse
in the midst of the waters. Let it separate the waters from
the waters. God made the expanse and
separated the waters under the expanse from the waters that
were above the expanse. And it was so.
And God called the expanse heaven.
There was evening and there was morning the second day.
Here we see God creating the sky on day 2.
So God's creating the sky. But we spend a lot of time here
talking about waters. So there are waters above the
earth and waters below God create an expanse or or a vault
or some texts say firmament to separate the waters above from
the waters below. You know how water exists in
three different forms. It's liquid, solid and gas or or
vapor. When water is in its liquid
version, we naturally just call that water.
When we say water, we are referring to the liquid version
of H2O. When it's in solid form, it's
ice, and when it's in vapor form, we call it humid.
Stay with me here. All right, Well, the waters
needed to be separated. By the way, I can do without
this summer. This humidity needs to go away.
I'm so sensitive to the humidity.
My California roots are like deep.
Well, the waters needed to be separated to create the
framework for this new earth. The waters below are the seas
and such. Though I think for the
Israelites reading this or hearing it, they would have
naturally looked at the the waters as probably being all
around them everywhere, even under the earth.
Nonetheless, somehow God separated the waters from above
from the waters below. And the theory that's proposed
is called the canopy theory. And these are all just theories
because we don't know how God actually works, right?
The the idea is that God created some sort of canopy that that
held back the waters above until the flood.
Now water can be dangerous in both its absence and in its
abundance. When we don't have enough water,
we end up with drought conditions which can lead to
famine. And when there's an
overabundance of water, the threat of flooding becomes
imminent. Nights and the waters of chaos
are fundamental images of non creation in Egypt and in Babylon
and ancient Israel. These ideas aren't being
borrowed from other cultures or or their their other
cosmologies. This is their very own
perspective on the world. Water is significant here, and
it serves as a hyperlink. As you continue to read
throughout Scripture, you'll repeatedly see moments where the
water is a threat to God's people, but God shows himself
sovereign over the waters. There's of course the Exodus,
there's providing water from a rock, Jonah being thrown into
the sea, Jesus walking on water, Jesus calming storms and catch
what Revelation 21 says. Revelation 21 verse 1, John
writes. Then I saw a new heaven and a
new earth for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away
and the sea was no more. So the water, the sea is going
to be removed in heaven. It sure seems that in the
heaven, the new heaven, the new earth, surfers will have to pick
out a new hobby. I'm not sure what they'll do.
Maybe they can surf on the river, I don't know.
So God is in control of the waters, and it's important to
note that the separating of the waters serves a purpose as it
prepares the new creation for for life that will be coming on
day 6. Without waters being confined to
the right places, life will struggle to exist.
Yahweh separated the waters above from the waters beneath.
Now we come to the third day of creation.
God created land. God created land on the third
day God said let the waters under the heavens be gathered
into one place and let the dry land appear.
And it was so God called the dry land earth and the waters that
were gathered together He called seas.
And God saw that it was good of the waters under the heavens
were were apparently spread out. Perhaps this was rivers or
marshes or something like that, but God called for the waters to
be drawn together into one location.
Also, that the dry land could appear.
Now, as with the day and night, God chooses to assign names to
the dry land and waters. He calls them earth and seas.
Now, if you're really paying attention, you may have noticed
that God didn't declare the second day good.
The work of the second day wasn't quite yet complete.
The waters were separated, but the specific task at hand wasn't
quite done. God needed to createspace for
the waters and provide a place for vegetation.
Once the final separation of waters was achieved, then God
called it good. So what's the significance of
the land? Well, it's a place of safety.
The struggle against the sea and its potential monsters that
Psalm 74 refers to are are no longer of consequence with the
creation of the land. In Genesis 1, God assures his
people that they they should not fear the sea because the sea
wouldn't exist apart from Him as its creator.
He is the sea's master. If God created the sea, He can
protect us from the dangers of the sea.
If God created the land and He can provide for us.
As we talk about God's creating the heavens and and now dry land
of the earth, it's fitting for us to consider how they might
have processed the world It's normal for us to think in in our
21st century ways of looking at the world.
We naturally think of a globe because in the 4th century
Aristotle discerned that only a round sphere could could create
a circular shadow when looking at a lunar eclipse.
It's quite astute, but I hate to break it to you.
The people of Moses day were most likely flat earthers.
When they viewed the sky the the heavens, they thought of it as a
as a Dome like structure and and the earth being flat and like I
mentioned waters perhaps being under the earth.
Even God created the dry land on that third day, but it's not
done yet. Genesis 1 verses 11 through 13.
God said let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding
seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit, and which is their seed,
each according to its kind on the earth.
And it was so the earth brought forth vegetation, plants
yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing
fruit and which is their seed, each according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was
morning, the third day. Since God had created dry land,
everything was now sufficient for life.
So in verse 11, God commanded the earth to sprout vegetation.
And then what happens? Well, in verse 12, the earth
does what God says it. It sprouts vegetation, plants
with seeds and trees that and trees that bear fruits.
Everything reproduced according to its own kind.
Now here's a basic arguments in Scripture that kind produces
kind. Got that this is important.
Kind produces kind. One kind does not turn into
another kind. A cat doesn't become a dog or a
dog doesn't become a cat. An ape cannot become a human.
Each kind produces after its own kind.
Again, God's power over creation is shown as he simply speaks
plant life into existence, calling it to reproduce itself.
So here we've seen the first few days of creation.
Day one, God created the lights and called it day.
In the darkness He called nights.
Day 2 God created the sky when he separated the waters above
from the waters below. And then on day three, God
created land when he gathered the waters into one place.
Now here, this is the framework for creation.
That is what we see on the 1st 3 days of creation.
This is the framework for creation.
The foundation has been laid. Essentially, Yahweh built the
structure and now it's time to decorate it.
To fill in all the details. The artist starts with a canvas.
The home builder first frames the home frames out the walls
and the roof and everything before rocking it and and
covering it and everything that they need to do.
So next week we'll see how each day of creation, days 4 through
6 correspond to days one through three.
I know some of this can sound remedial, like a good Sunday
school story, but it's important to see what God made on each
day. Lastly, we see God's sovereignty
over all creation, God's sovereignty over all creation.
I briefly touched on this earlier, but when Genesis
asserts that God created it all, it's showing God to be
sovereign, to be in control of everything.
The Babylonians no doubt would have had reservations about
their gods as the world came into existence through a battle
between the opposing gods, Marduk and and Tiamat.
The Genesis account of creation stands apart from the creation
mythologies of those other false religions in that Genesis
demonstrates who Yahweh is, and he is starkly different from all
the other gods that's the ancient Israelites and their
neighbors had known about. Imagine you're a 14th century BC
near or Middle Easterner. You have much different concerns
than we can really fathom. Darkness, water scarcity, good
land to grow food. Genesis informs the reader that
God is sovereign over it all. Will I be safe in the dark?
God created the lights. Will I have enough water?
He provided water as well as protection from the dangers that
water can pose. Will I have enough food to
provide for my family? Genesis answer is yes, yes and
yes. God is providing for his people.
He has given them light to protect them from the things or
the people that lurk in the night.
He has provided protection from the scary waters and He has
provided the land that grows with vegetation and fruits for
His people to enjoy. This.
This is who the Israelites and our God is.
Therefore we can trust him. The myths of the ancient world,
like the Enuma Elish, help us appreciate the radical nature of
of the Genesis account. They show us a world filled with
capricious, sexually charged gods motivated by power
struggles, and against this backdrop, the opening chapters
of Genesis stand as a powerful declaration of God's singular
holy character. In the first three days, we see
not a king who claims power through violence, but rather a
divine artist who creates and brings it all into being through
the spoken word. From the separation of light
from darkness to the division of the waters and the emergence of
dry land, each act is deliberate, purposeful, and
peaceful. There's no jealousy or
insecurity driving our creator. He's a God of peace and his
character is imprinted on the very order and fullness he
brings into being. This is the God we worship.
Not a God to be appeased through magic or or feared in battle,
but a good God whose nature is to create and bring forth life.
So as we go from this place this morning, let us carry the image
of this good and powerful Creator and reflect his
peaceful, ordering, life giving character in our own lives.
Let's pray God, we come to you this morning and we thank you
for the opportunity to look into your word, to begin at the
beginning of creation and to consider how you have worked,
How awesome it is to consider that you created it all, that
you are in control of it all. So we can only respond in
worship and proclaim how great you are.
So God, this morning as we close our time, may we may reflect on
truly your greatness. So we thank you for this time.
Jesus name we pray, Amen.