Genesis 1:1-3

Good morning to you all. I've already mentioned today we're going to be starting a new study in the book of Genesis. Today we have the first two and a half verses. We're up half a verse from last week. You can read one through. Might be out by one o'clock a day. There you go. So you want to see one of all of the three? Yeah, one through three. Okay. Genesis chapter one, beginning of verse one. 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. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you again this morning. And Lord, we do look to you again asking for your help. Lord, we have your word by your grace right here before us in black and white. But Lord, we need your help to understand. We need by your spirit that you would open up our minds to receive, to show us what we would otherwise miss. How these things reveal your greatness and your willingness to redeem. So Father, we pray. Cause your word, your word, which is living and powerful. Cause it to have that effect in us that we would know you better, that we would understand more about your purpose, your purposes and doing what you have done. And Lord, that our hearts would be drawn to you in greater love and praise. Or your greatness and your great mercy toward us. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Can be seated. This is both exciting and intimidating. Of course, you know, I hesitate. Sometimes you think in handling the word of God that some passages just seem tougher than others. But you know, I really kind of hesitate to even say that. It's all God's word. It all has great and in fact, infinite significance. And we always need to be aware of that. And we need to be aware of that. I think it's just natural. And besides we need to do that so that when we do this, so that when we look back on the Old Testament, we can see it in the right light, in the right perspective. But this is also needed. Again, it's all God's word, God's revelation to us. Now I'm going to kind of use over these next few sermons, next few Sundays, kind of use a basic outline here as we walk through Genesis 1 and 2. And so that will pretty much be this first God and then creation and then man. And then too we might talk about a little more about Christ in the beginning. Of course I'm going to be talking some about that today, but we may go into that little deeper. We'll see. But today, our mainly are, and that's why I just, two and a half verses or two and a quarter verses or whatever it is. I put a on the end of the three there you see, because you'll see why in a moment. But I've got to focus in a little bit on the first part of chapter three, because that's important. But so for today, our main purpose is just focusing in on the true God, the maker of all things at the beginning. So let's just kind of dive into that. I want to give you at least a look at a couple of different quotes and I'm going to give you one or two here. I thought it might be helpful just by, helpful just by way of introduction. So this one's coming from the NIVs, Zonderman, Zonderman NIV study Bible, just a little paragraph here, which says this, about Genesis 1, 1 through 2, 25. The opening chapters of Genesis contain two complementary descriptions of creation. And as I said, Lord willing, we'll talk more about that later, but He goes on. One panoramic, one close up. The first creation account, which is Genesis 1, 1 through chapter 2, verse 3, describes God as the creator of the universe and all life in it. The second account, which is Genesis 2, 4 through 25, focuses on God's creation of the man and woman and their home. The more general creation of the world, of the world, is followed by the more specific focus on the first man and woman. The term account in Genesis 2, 4 suggests that the creation accounts are related to the accounts of the lines of Cain and Seth in Genesis 4, 5, and of Noah's sons in Genesis chapter 10 through 11. In each case, the accounts appear as a pair where the second account tends to zoom in on a specific line and move the story forward. So what they're trying to do here is help us see a pattern that they're saying they believe also occurs here in Genesis 1 and 2. So you've got more of a big picture creation account in chapter 1 or to be more precise. This is one of those odd places where the chapter division is not right, but that's what we have anyway. So the first account is basically 11 through 23. And then really that would seem to be more logical, more logical chapter break right there. So 2, 4 should be 2, 1, but anyway, it's not. So that's the first account. And then from verse 4 on chapter 2, verse 4, on down to 25 is the zoomed end, or zoomed end account, where the focus shifts from the whole universe, the perspective of God creating all things, and zeros in more on the man and the woman and the garden, where God placed them. Okay, so that's just something to keep in mind as we go. But again, today, as I said, our main focus is going to be on the beginning and God in the beginning. So I would just kind of sum up the main point for today. This way, and let me rephrase that because this is more than just the main point for today. It is the main point for today. But this is actually the main point of the narrative as it goes on here. But the main point being this, the point of the creation narrative is to declare to us that the God of the Bible is the only God. Pretty simple, isn't it? And you know from talking to people that there are stories of the origin of creation that date back to ancient times. Now I know in our day, we typically just think of two. We say, okay, there's the biblical version, and then there's the Darwinian version. Actually, there are a lot more versions than that, but those are usually the only two that we're confronted with and that we think about. But take yourself back in time, the best you can in your imagination, to the time of Moses. They know anything about Darwin. But they had lots of other gods, faults, gods, and things that they worshiped as God. And lots of other stories about the origin of different things and who controlled the different things. So you got to the sun, got to the moon, got to the sea, got to the land, and then you even had various gods for different areas of land. So what the narrative of the Genesis account does is essentially do away with all of those without even mentioning them. I mean, he doesn't, and by the way, Moses, the reason I said take yourself back in your imagination to the time of Moses, because Moses is the author here. He's the one who wrote these things, is writing them for the children of Israel primarily. So he's the one putting them down as record. So what happens here is Moses writes the true account of what really happened and how things came to being. And in doing that, he just kind of does away with all of the false notions. Again, without addressing them specifically, if you talk about, just just for example, if you teach as Genesis does here that the sun was created by Yahweh, the God of the Bible, the God of the Hebrews at this time, then you have automatically discounted the idea that there was some special God of the sun, or that the sun itself was a God. No, it's a created thing. Just one of a vast universe created by true and living God. So that's the message of the Genesis creation narrative that there's only one true God. I would say that's the main message. It's not so much to get us focusing in on creation, although there's certain prophet to study in creation, learning about creation, but it is to get us to focus in on the God who created the God of creation. So let's just do it this way. I said we're just diving in, so let's just go back to verse one. And the first thing here is this phrase, the beginning, the beginning. And I would kind of paraphrase that this way. In other words, what are we talking about by the beginning? It's when all things that have a beginning, began. This beginning, this beginning that you see in Genesis 1, Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning. What is Moses referring to? Is he talking about the beginning of the nation of Israel? Is he talking about, I don't know, the beginning of written history or something like that? What beginning is he talking about? He's talking about the beginning, the beginning in which all things that had a beginning began. Or you could say the beginning in which all things that are, all things that exist, have their origin. It's all traceable back to one point. And I would say one point in time, but this is where time began. So I guess you could call it a point in time, but this is where time itself, at least as we know it, time and space has its origin. Now, let me say this too, because I'm not going to get into all kinds of theories and refutations of theories. My approach here is going to be basically the same as Moses' approach since I'm trying to exegy his writing. And that is this. Some things are assumed to be true. So just for example, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but just for example, God is assumed in the Genesis account. You notice that Moses doesn't introduce him, he doesn't give an explanation, an introduction, an apologetic account. Here's all about God, here's what God is, here's God and so forth. He just, no, just in the beginning, God, the existence of God is assumed. Now I think it's always, I know some people will find fault with this, mainly our opponents, but there's a saithness about just staying with truth and just proclaiming the truth for what it is. And I like apologetics, so I don't mind somebody arguing for the existence of God. That's the discipline of apologetics. And I enjoy that, I enjoy listening to guys who are really good at it, it's good and all that. But it's not totally necessary, I guess would be the way to say it. In other words, it's safe to just act as though God is and to just work with that assumption. The reason it's safe is because it's true. Assumptions like that aren't always safe, in this case it's safe, it's safe because it's true. And so we can just start there like Moses did and then we can just proceed on that basis. Because for one reason, you will not convince an unbeliever that God exists. God does that. And again, I'm not against making the argument, but ultimately you will not be able to convince somebody by your argument. God does that when he makes himself known to them. Same way that you and I became convinced. So back to the first one, as I said, I'm getting ahead of myself, that's just kind of an example. But this beginning is the beginning of all things except God. But we are talking about the beginning of everything as we know it other than God. Again, he stands out separate from this beginning as the creator of it. But everything else that we know, everything else that is, whether we know it or not, has its origin here in this beginning. And this is the same beginning that John refers to in the beginning of his, in his gospel, John 1, 1, and it's no coincidence, by the way, when John says there, in the beginning was the Word. Now, he's referring to Jesus as the Word, the eternal Word, the Word of God, the perfect expression of God, right? The perfect communication of God. And that's how he's introducing Jesus as the eternal Word of God. And in doing that, he says, he makes the point that Jesus, the Word, as he calls him, was in the beginning. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And as I said, we read down a little further there to John 1, 14, and we find out that the Word that he's talking about is Jesus, because he says, the Word became flesh and wealth among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten son of the Father. So the Word is Jesus. So the way he introduces Jesus is by saying, he's the eternal Word of God, who was in the beginning with God and was himself God. Now, again, no coincidence, John uses that same little praise in the beginning. And I say it's no coincidence, because what he's wanting us to do, he's purposely using the line from Genesis 1-1, because he wants us to know he's talking about the same beginning. So we understand that in the beginning, when all things were brought into being. Think about that. Nothing existed. Except God, get to that in a moment, but nothing existed. No thing, no part of the universe, no angel, no person, nothing, nothing because all of those things are part of the creative universe. No thing existed at that point when all things were brought into existence, John wants us to know Jesus already existed. So when everything else, that point, when everything else was brought into being, Jesus already was. Because what John is doing there is emphasizing the deity of Christ, or the eternality of Christ. He's not created being like you and I. He's the eternal Word of God. He's the eternal Son of God in the beginning. He was already with God. In the beginning, he was God. In fact, John goes on to say that all things were created by Him. There wasn't anything that was made. That is nothing was brought into being without without Him. So this is the same beginning. It's the beginning of all things. It's that point where everything that exists, contracts its origin back to. Now, I'll just mention this. I may be getting a little ahead of myself here too. We're not talking really about the six days of creation yet, but I'll just throw this out because maybe something you want to be considering as you go. Obviously there are different views. Here, right about exactly how God brought all of these things into being. Are the six days, literal six days and all that kind of thing. I just want to say I recognize there are different views here, even among Christians. I'm not even talking about people outside. I'm just talking about Christians. Among Christians, there are different views. But my approach here is going to be unless the Lord changes it. I mean, because my approach is to believe and teach what the Scripture says. But right now, that perspective is that what we're talking about here is a literal six days in which God brings everything that we know into being. I'll just say this for now. Maybe we can talk more about it later. But God is able to do that because the beginning, which again is what our main focus is here. The beginning is a miracle. It's miraculous. So, you know, and I'm not trying to accuse everybody that has another view of wanting to take away the miracles. I don't mean to say that. But I'm just saying that I don't have a problem with it all happening in six literal days because God can do that. He can do that. He can do the miraculous. He can make something brand new. It's not brand new. I presume from the scriptural account that that's what he did with Adam and E. They seemed to me to be have to have been created as basically full-grown adults. So that perhaps if you and I had looked at Adam and E, we might have guessed what are they? 25 years old, 30 years old, something like that. Maybe they're 20, 18 or 20. When the truth was, God made him three seconds ago. You know what I'm saying? I mean, he's able to do that. He's able to do that. So that's kind of going to be the approach. But either way, either way, that aside, this is the beginning of it all. It starts here. It starts here. So that's the beginning of, that's the beginning that we're referring to. This is the beginning of all things that exist but God. So that brings us to the second point, right? God, God, the Creator of all things. And obviously we'll be talking more about that as we move along through chapters 1 and 2 in the beginning, God. Again, not unlike John 1 and 1 in the beginning was the Word which we find out was God. The Word was with God and the Word was God. It was Jesus but Jesus is God. He's divine. So in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Similarly here in the beginning, God. So before there's anything, there's not exactly nothing. That's kind of confusing, isn't it? R.C. Sproul has a statement that I like because a lot of people out there would have us believe that somehow, and this is, they wouldn't admit to this, this is also kind of a miracle. Somehow everything that we know came out of nothing. Spontaneously, what they call spontaneous generation. So there was nothing and then all of a sudden there was something and nobody, I mean when you take it from that point, they have some pretty good theories, some pretty good explanations. You know how this something came to be what we know today. At least they sound convincing. But it's getting back prior to that that they have trouble with. How did this something get there? And Sproul has this saying that he likes to use, if ever there was a time when there was nothing, there would be nothing now. Because something doesn't come out of nothing. So if there was ever a time when there was nothing, there would be nothing now. So we know from that bit of logic, and of course from the revelation of Scripture, which is more important, but that little bit of logical lines up with Scripture. We know from that bit of logic that there never was a time when there was nothing. I mean totally, there was always something. Now God created, and again we'll talk more about this as we go, God created all things out of nothing, but that was him doing it. So you've got something, you've got God. He just didn't have anything to work with. He created X and a Healow out of nothing. In fact, I was mentioning a moment ago how the evolutionists, the Darwinians, have a problem with the, you know, before this, whatever they think the starting point was, whether it was a big bang or whatever. What they cannot, you know, don't want to talk about is how that something that caused that came into being. And Sproul talked about his email exchanges over the years with Carl Sagan, who was an atheist at Darwinian, you know, had the show Cosmos. And he asked him, you know, of course about that bluntly, because if I remember correctly, he had adopted some form of the big bang theory, and so he had the explanation of the bang and then everything after that. So Sproul asked, raised the question, you know, where did that material, the material that caused the bang, where did that come from? And he just, he just, I guess honestly said, you know, we don't, we don't talk about that. We don't know, we don't, we don't know about that, we don't talk about that. Well, the Bible does talk about that. God existed before anything else, and he always existed. Again, there, in the ultimate sense, if you mean no thing, including God, then there never was a time when there was nothing. God always existed, and God brought everything else into being. Now, should say this too, because I'm trying, trying to, of course, place that emphasis on him right now, and we'll hopefully continue to do so, because he's the central figure here. He's the star, he's the main character in this narrative. God. I mean, we talk about it being the creation narrative, which is true. But the central figure here is not creation, it is the creator, who's bringing all these things into existence. God is the central figure. The creation narrative, like all of Genesis and all of the Bible, is about God. and it's about His power and His grace. He is the Creator and the Sustainer and the Goal of all things. He's the Creator, the Savior and the Goal of all things. So, He's the proper starting point. In other words, if you want to understand the universe, I know that may sound kind of lofty, but really kind of what I'm getting at is some pretty basic questions. Like, why are we here? Where do we come from? Where is all this going? Pretty basic questions, right? And if you want to understand those things, and I think, I don't know if it's fair to say most people do, but I think a lot of people do. Hopefully most people do. If you want to understand those things, the starting point has to be God. That's the beginning of all wisdom. That's the beginning of all knowledge. That's the fear of the Lord. That's the beginning of all wisdom, the beginning of all knowledge. He is the proper starting point. That's where the Bible starts us in the beginning, God. Now, here are just a few characteristics. Some of these are, well, I'll say this way. I'm going to give you four things here. You might say, well, they're not explicitly taught here in Genesis 1 and 2. Perhaps not, but they're hinted at. And then the Bible unpacks them as it goes. But here's one thing, and I've already mentioned this. God is unique. That is, there's no one else like Him. God is unique and separate. We like to say, when we talk about God's holiness, that He is other than. Well, we need to always keep that in mind in relation to, well, God in relation to anything, but God in relation to creation. He's not part of it. He transcends everything. Every thing that we know, everything about our reality, our whole space-time reality that you and I are confined to and it's all that we know. God transcends all of that. He's not part of creation. He stands out of it and above it as the maker, the creator. So that's taught here, like I say, perhaps not as explicitly as I just tried to state it, but certainly, when you've got a statement like in the beginning, God created the heavens of the earth and then you've got a record of Him bringing all things into being. The logical conclusion is, He's greater than all. If He brought everything else into being, then He's greater than everything else. It was all brought into being by His power and according to His will and for His purposes. And secondly, God is eternal. Again, we've already stressed that quite a bit, but I just want to put some emphasis on it. What do you have? Own, present, whatever, experience, anything. That's eternal. Now, the point I'm trying to make is that that's a hard concept for us to get our minds around because we have nothing to relate it to. You know, I heard somebody say years ago, when you buy a new car, buy one that you're going to like when it's old, because the whole point is it may be impressive when it rolls off a lot, but it's not going to stay that way. It's not going to keep the new car smell. I mean, you can buy stuff to try to put that back in there, but it's not going to stay there. And it's got to, even the stuff you buy, I mean, it's got to be able to override all of the spills and getting sick in there and all that kind of stuff. You know, if you got kids, you know, we're talking about everything gets old. Everything degenerates, including us. So sometimes, you know, people act like they're going to live forever and we talk about that, you know, he thinks he's going to live forever. That's almost true sometimes. People think they're invincible. That's usually when you're younger, you start getting over that kind of, the older you get, even if you don't know the Lord, I mean, you know, because the truth, at least in that sense, the truth prevails, it makes itself known to you, but God is eternal. So again, at this point, when everything else is being brought into being, he already is. And that's why later, we'll see Lord willing, as we move through the scripture fact, well, shouldn't be long really, because we're not, whether or not we'll go on to Exodus, I don't know, but we're going to see God's name, even early on in Genesis, the name that he gives to Moses in Exodus. And that's the part of the concept behind it. I am is the idea that he just is always perpetually. He never, it's not that he was or will be, but he is. And it doesn't matter what point you're referencing. You mean 50 years ago, God is, 3000 years ago, God is 200 million, whatever years ago, or however you want to measure out the time back into eternity past, even before creation, before all thing, everything else came into being, God is, and God is all the way through the future. He is being at all times. For him, you know, we're looking at the starting point here, but for him, there's no starting point. And again, that's part of the point, John is making in John 1 and 1 about Jesus. There's no starting point for him, because when everything else was being brought into being, he already was. And in fact, he's the one that brought everything else into being. So God is unique and God is eternal and God is the creator of everything. Again, as I said earlier, he's not a part of creation. God is not a part of creation. Creation is not God. We were talking earlier about the Star Wars movies and, you know, they're fun. On the downside, I guess, a lot of the thinking that what we would call worldview that's communicated in the fun movies, you know, just in a light way. A lot of those concepts are actually held by people seriously out in the world, unbelievers. You know, the whole idea, you know, like in the Star Wars, I mean, of course, they use the, in the movie, they use the term force. And when you, when you die, you just kind of, I was trying to remember a specific quote. I think it was Joe, I can't remember it. But anyway, the idea is that you just, you become part of the force more or less. And a lot of people believe that. They just think God is just kind of everything or it's at least this energy that governs everything. And you're just energy for a period of time trapped in this body. And when you die, you're going to be liberated as it were set free. And you're going to just kind of meld back into the cosmic energy out there. That's exciting, isn't it? I know, that sounds good. Well, God's not part of creation. And creation is not part of Him. He is to create tour. The Creator. He transcends all else. Now, and then fourth, here's the fourth thing. God is Trinity. We refer to Him often as the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And as I said, a moment ago, sometimes the, the Son is refer at Capitol, so the Son, Jesus is sometimes referred to as the Word, like we have in John 1 and 1. So Father, Son, our Word, Father, the Word, the eternal Word, and the Holy Spirit. Is the doctrine of the Trinity taught in Genesis 1? You know, I already said, Moses doesn't exactly introduce God or explain God or anything like that. He just says in the beginning, God. And he goes on with the assumption that God is. He goes on to talk about what God has done. Why am I bringing up the Trinity? When here we are in first chapter of Genesis, and we're only looking at the first few verses, because I think the Trinity is found in the first few verses. Again, the doctrine of the training was not taught explicitly here, but I think the truth is here. The truth of it is here. It's just that Moses probably didn't understand it. Number one, number two, even if he did, he didn't take the time to say, "Okay, here's, let me explain to you about what I know about the Godhead and the triunity of God." In fact, sometimes we're criticized for believing it because people say the doctrine of the Trinity is not even in the Bible. The Trinity is not a word that comes from the Bible. Well, that's true. And it's true that the doctrine of the Trinity developed over time. And basically what we mean by that is that men had to ponder the truth of Scripture and think about how to understand it and how to articulate it. So the doctrine of the Trinity, as we talk about it today, was something that developed over time when men and women of God articulated it. So yes, the development of the doctrine, the teaching rather developed over time, but the truth of it, I think is clearly taught in the Scripture. And not only that, but as I said a moment ago, is at least hinted at right here in the opening verses of the Bible. So for example, God, and you know, if you read much in the New Testament, that often God, the Father is referred to, when there's a distinction, may God, the Father is just referred to as God and then Jesus says the Son or the Word. And then the Holy Spirit. So there you have God, God the Father, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep. So there you have the Holy Spirit in verse two. And then in verse three, and this is going to be repeated several times because this is how God created. And God said. Now you know I put three A on the Scripture text for today, right? Genesis one, one through three A because we needed to get to that and God said, wow, because that's the word of God. John one warning says in the beginning was the Word. This is what he's talking about. He's talking about this beginning and this word, God spoke. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. In other words, here God is expressing Himself, expressing His will, His will, His desire, His good pleasure comes to expression. In fact in a very tangible way as things begin to pop into being at the commandment of God. So there's the Trinity, God the Father created the heavens the earth. God the Holy Spirit, verse two, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And then God the Son are the eternal Word of God. Verse three, and God said. Now close with this final thing here. And this is a marvelous truth. I mean, we wouldn't be talking about any of this except for this reason. God has spoken. God has spoken. He has made Himself known. He has declared Himself. In creation, John Piper likes to say, God decided to go public with His glory. I think that's a good way to think about it because He did not create out of need. To feel some need or something lacking, He needed to, whatever. He needed to create. No, He didn't need to. He chose to. And He did that by speaking all of creation into existence. So we need to make this distinction. Creation is not divine. Creation is not God, but it is an expression of God's goodness, of God's power, of God's will, His good pleasure. Creation is an expression of God's good pleasure. That's why we're going to see the words repeated. God saw that it was good. Or after He creates man, God saw that it was very good. What is it that's good? Is it just the creation? Well, yes, He created it as good. But I think more the idea there is His good pleasure has come to expression. Again, in a very tangible way. He spoke things into existence. So God has chosen to express Himself. He has declared His glory in His creation and His works. So you get to Psalm 19, for example, says the heavens declared the glory of God, the firmament of His power. In other words, all that He's created are screaming the message that God is great, that God is and that He's great. And He's also spoken in the form of this written word which we have here before us. So I would say the very account that we're looking at here of God speaking is God speaking. Of course, this written account is God's word. So the very written account that we're looking here to learn about the origin of all things in the very account of God speaking, expressing Himself, is God expressing Himself in written form. God chose to make Himself known. And He chose to make known to us that He is the only true God. And that in the beginning, because He is the only true God, He has no beginning. So in the beginning when everything else came into existence, He already existed because He has always existed and there never was a time in which He was not. And in fact, as we're learning here, not only was He there, but He's the one who brought all things into existence by His own power and according to His own good pleasure out of His own grace, grace. Of course, we learn more about that. Don't we, as we move through the Bible? Would you stand, please, and will be dismissed? I'll submit this to you and you may think, you know, you're probably nobody in here does, but possibly. You may think, you know, you're assuming too much, but I'll say this. I do assume that everything we're looking at here is true. You know, a lot of reasons for that. That we don't have time to go into this morning, obviously. But this is the true, the Bible, the God rather, that the Bible declares to be the one true, living God is the one true and living God. He's the only one. He's the only one worthy of our devotion, the only one who can deliver us from sin. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You for these truths. Thank You for Your Word. Lord, grant to us, we pray, understanding as we move along. Reading some things that are very familiar to us because we've looked at them many times, but Lord, that doesn't mean we've grasped everything there that there is to grasp. It doesn't mean that our understanding is where it should be. So we're asking Father by Your Spirit that You give to us understanding of these things so that we may have a right understanding of You and Your will for us. so that we may live this life. Just as we were intended to do for your honor and glory, we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.