Genesis 1:1-2:3, Who

So this is chapter 1 be reading the whole chapter into chapter 2 verse 3 here the word of the Lord 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 and God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he called night

And there was evening and there was morning the first day And God said let there be an expanse 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 waters that were above the expanse and it was so and God called the expanse heaven and 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 and 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

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 and the earth brought forth vegetation plants yielding seed according to their 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 and God said let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and Let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens and to give light upon the earth

And it was so and God called the two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars and God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth to rule over this day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good and There was evening and there was morning the fourth day and God said let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures

And let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens So God created this great sea creatures and every living creature that moves with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind and God saw that it was good and God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let birds multiply on the earth and there was evening and there was morning the fifth day and God said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds

Livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds and it was so and God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind and God saw that it was good then

God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and Over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth

So God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created him male and female he created them and God blessed them and said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of The sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth and God said behold

I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth every tree with seeds in its fruit

You shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on The earth everything that has breath the breath of life.

I have given Every green plant for food and it was so and God saw everything that he had made and behold

It was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day

God finished his work That he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation

If the Lord had his blessings the reading of his Holy Word I'll know yourself

Was the greatest advice of ancient Greek philosophy? They wrote a famous myth of all about it the myth of Oedipus to illustrate the point

Oedipus didn't know himself He didn't know where he came from. And so he ended up killing his father and marrying his mother

Maybe you've known people who don't know themselves very well Sometimes that's tragic

Sometimes it's comical. I once saw a personal ad by someone Who probably didn't know herself very well.

It said I'm a shy 18 year old single woman with two children Shy really how many kids would she have as she was outgoing?

I wonder know yourself To know yourself you need to know where you came from Who you came from is key to know who you are.

You know, what's your origin? That's why many people are fascinated by investigating their genealogy.

They'll go to these Websites in their DNA to find out You know where they came from who their ancestors were they think who they come from explains who they are

But knowing where your beliefs and your culture that is your soul your spirit

Where they come from is really much more to the point of knowing yourself Americans are supposed to be taught that the founding fathers were champions of Liberty And so we are then supposed to be sons and daughters of Liberty freedom lovers

We're descended from freedom lovers And so we we think we are freedom lovers now over the last couple of generations an alternative myth has arisen that the founders were actually self -serving lovers of slavery

Which is mostly false Shows that don't know history very well They don't know the context that they were oppressive people.

They were tyrants just interested in Exploitation for themselves and so it's no surprise that the people who believe that that's where they came that those people are often some of the most oppressive censorious censorship loving people your myth of origin

Shapes who you are Now probably every culture has its creation stories to explain

Where they came from and who they are They're myths they explain their identity and we normally think of this as just belonging to ancient primitive cultures

We don't really think we have we don't have myths. We just have science We think we're too sophisticated for myths, but what we we do indeed have this they explain who we are

When Mary and I were in Ethiopia We got our news entertainment for the BBC World Service radio and they had a program being them to Africa and where we were

Which ask its listeners remember this program ask its listeners to send in their native accounts of creation myths

You could see some guy in London Expecting these letters to come in talking about these myths the world came from a giant turtle

They got turned over upside down and we're in the bowl something like that and they would look so smugly on it We know so much better than all these primitive people

But I decided I'd send in one of the dominant myths of my native culture

See how they liked it. Well, here's what I wrote what I sent them Once an incredibly long time ago

There was nothing absolutely nothing but a speck of super dense matter where the super dense matter came from is never explained in the myth

Then for some unexplained reason it exploded the material from this explosion spread out in all directions some of it though Happened by the work of Almighty Chance to come together to form various bodies

Some of these bodies again by the work of Almighty Chance Had the right composition to ignite into stars billions of these stars were created thus by chance

Chance also fashion planets quite haphazardly Of course around one of chances medium -sized stars was a formed a medium -sized planet

That just happened to have the right ingredients to cook up some water at chance took a while stewing

But finally out of the concoction sprung a set of randomly arranged chemicals They just happened to be able to replicate themselves these chemicals while still stewing as if in a crock pot were

Transformed by the wonders of chance into cellular life Which in turn through miracles no human mind could fathom

Developed over eons into scientists to whom chance randomly selected to be the bearers of this new myth.

I Don't know if the people in the BBC were amused by my myth The myth is a dominant force in our culture.

Now the major problem with that myth Is not how? But who not how the universe came about, you know the the

Big Bang Physics whatever but who caused it Christians too often want to argue about how

How it happened but the real poison of this new secular myth is that it tells us that our creator is

Only time and chance there were the ones after billions and billions of rolls of the dice

Who finally got lucky that if enough monkeys dance on the typewriters one of them will eventually write

Hamlet The myth tells us that we are only the products of time and chance that's where we came from That's who we are

Now imagine what kind of people you're gonna get who buy into that myth People who think that they really are nothing more than animals who happen to develop brains rather than claws

People who think that if it suits them we can thin out the human herd by eliminating other human beings who are of a race

They don't like or maybe are the inconvenient products of a promiscuity they want to enjoy

That myth produces people who think that man really was made for bread alone that myth produced the

Holocaust the liquidation of millions by the communists and the abortion clinics

Genesis one stands in direct opposition to that secular myth here We find our origins about who we are and rather than reducing human beings to a you know

A naked ape as some scientists now call us Genesis one lifts humanity up It tells us we are much more than the lucky product of time and chance

But it simultaneously puts us in our place under God it does this in two major parts first the scene setting and then the scene first the scene setting like arranging a stage

Before the play begins and the first two verses in four short sentences first In the beginning

God created the heavens Heavens doesn't mean like a spiritual realm where God lives away from the material world

Heavens means the universe outer space like in Psalm believe the Psalm 9 the heavens, you know

David is out shepherding the sheep and he says the heavens looking at the stars at night the universe declares the glory of God In the beginning

God created the heavens and the earth this planet and so the first statement is that God created all things that all matter all stars galaxies the solar system the third rock from the

Sun everything by beginning with God in the beginning

God we see God was already there in the beginning the beginning here is not the beginning of God But the beginning of his creation of us

God is the only one without a beginning God by definition is

Uncreated he is the creator and only he is the creator everything else is

Created and that makes God infinitely higher as transcendent Over everything else including ourselves now some false religions like the

Mormons teach that as we are God once was that he evolved and as God is

We can become that we too can evolve to become like God But right in the first sentence of the

Bible we see that that's not true He is the creator and we are created Here is a division then between us and God They can never be erased

We can never become the creator because we will always be created beings and God will always be our creator

And when God first inspired this chapter now is a bold statement that all these things all these things mentioned in this chapter whether it be the skies or the seas or the

Sun or the moon the planets stars that they're only creations creatures

Only created things and they're not God's at all. Now the pagans believed in a small

G God -filled universe all these things are gods of different kinds the

Egyptians for example Sometimes worship the Sun Ra they look at the Sun. There's there's raw. There's a

God and so here in Genesis We are told that the Sun is created. So that's not a God at all The true

God created the Sun the Sun isn't in Greek mythology The Sun is it Apollo who's just making his daily rounds and his chariot across the sky the stars aren't gods

The planets aren't gods. Mercury isn't the messenger of the gods Venus isn't the goddess of love that Mars isn't the god of war.

There's all Creations like us except they're just objects and were created in the image of God The God created the universe means that he created matter

Even your body and there are two extreme errors that people fall into with creation

First is materialism the belief that matter is all there is Like the scientist

Carl Sagan who began his cosmos program by declaring. Here's his statement of faith The cosmos he says the material universe the cosmos is all that there is or was or ever will be

I'm thinking I remember what he said. You're scientists. Okay, prove that Scientists are supposed to have support for everything.

They say Prove with science that the cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be you can't it's faith.

That's his faith But if you believe that like him, what are you gonna do? What kind of life are you gonna live? You'll live for money.

You'll have stuff that you can buy things. You can see you can hold for your body what it can feel

That's materialism. The second error is the pseudo spirituality that some Christians fall into that matter

Doesn't matter they think Nothing that is natural material is spiritual

This is a problem the church has struggled with and sometimes surrendered to for a long time For a millennium the highest form of spirituality was seen as you want to be really spiritual

You become a monk or a nun and you flee the world by going off to a monastery or a convent seeking to be spiritual there the idea is that the truly spiritual people should escape from as much of The natural concerns of the world the material things as they can

Pseudo -spiritual people think the spiritual is in one realm and the natural is in another and they have no connection to each other

No creator who made them both now the Puritans Didn't believe that Because they were biblical

They're not pseudo -spiritual. They certainly weren't materialist, but they weren't escaping the world either

Puritan pastor increased matter second -generation New England Puritan Taught quote the works of God means nature has a voice in them

The universe natural things has a voice in them as well as his word

Otherwise as well as the Bible Mather was the president of Harvard and was the first person to write a book on comets

His son Cotton Mather is also a Puritan pastor was a pioneer in developing

Inoculations is one of the fathers of vaccines biblical Christians are pro -science because we believe

God made nature and Invites us to study it and to master it

Know yourself You're part of creation That's the first Part of the scene setting that's from verse 1 the second statement beginning in verse 2

The earth was without form and void or void and desolate which is disordered and Uninhabited it was not immediately after creation fit for living

To make it fit for living God worked on it. He made it and here we see the distinction between two things that we often confuse creating and Making and verse 1

God created out of nothing everything and there's a special word there in Hebrew for create in Hebrews barah is

Only used for God in the Bible. God is the only subject of that verb anywhere in the Old Testament God creates

God is the only one who creates we can make That's a different word like God God makes we can make

Now to make is to manufacture something out of pre -existing objects Constructed workers, you know make a building like this out of pre -existing whatever steel wood brick glass a

Cook makes a meal out of pre -existing What rice noodles meat vegetables?

But only God can create out of nothing in the beginning God created everything out of nothing and then in verse 2

Started to make it fit for us because it was void and desolate

Third scene setting statement in the middle of verse 2 and darkness was over the face of the deep implying let's say that clearly but it's implying the earth was covered with water and Probably whatever making it dark probably had such big clouds that light couldn't penetrate it was dark

Now some scientists calculate that in the in the past the earth was indeed completely covered By water it was watery fourth scene setting statement at the end of verse 2 and the

Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters and the verb they're hovering is

Using Deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 11 like the eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters or hovers

That's the word there over its young spreading out its wings catching them bearing them in its pinions

It evokes the image hovering like like a hen brooding over her chicks it suggests nurturing care

Supervision the Spirit of God is nurturing This earth to the earlier created and so now the stage is set for the scene to begin so then second part comes the scene

Starting verse 3 the stage has been set and so now it's time for the divine drama

There are seven days each of them introduced with the same refrain like a signal like a school bell going off You know time for class to begin or the rooster crowing a new day begins

You hear the rooster the the refrain here, you know a new day and God said every day begins with that signal and God said

So the first day then begins in verse 3 everything that happened just before that Before the first day is

Just setting the stage for what is now happening on earth, which is where the rest of the Bible is that now played out?

Earth is the stage for the divine drama in the first day. God brings light now light

Where many people just kind of assume? Well, it's not about original light the first beam of light to shine anywhere in the universe, but what was created in verse 1?

Did God not create any stars that create light that make light when he created the universe

No, remember the context the scene there is darkness on the face of the deep on earth

Now the new light is shining here at the first day. This new light is shining Where the darkness was?

On earth. That's why that light is called day and the darkness night

Day and night are on the surface of the earth Not in space The scene is on earth and God saw

That it was good Then there was evening and there was morning the end of the day every day is marked as beginning and ending

With it begins with and God said and ends with there was evening and there was morning the whatever day

Another refrain is and God saw That it was good God repeatedly kind of steps back in this process takes a look at the creation and declares six times

At least it is good in verses 4 and 10 and 12 18 21 25

God sees the creation in its various stages declares It is good

The second day in verses 6 to 8 God makes the sky with his rain -bearing clouds of his water everywhere now

There's a separation of water and in the third day in verses 9 to 13 First God makes the dry land separate from the seas

This isn't the creation of the earth as he calls it earth in Hebrew the word erits. This isn't the creation of the planet

That was created in verse 1 part of the scene setting what he's been working on He's been hovering over Previously already and now he in verse verses 9 to 13 of the third day.

He makes islands and continents land masses For what is to come and then and God said again, he just says it twice in the third day in verse 11

That on the dry land he makes plant life According to his kind so the wide variety of species of plants with seed to reproduce for the fourth day in verses 14 to 19

God makes the Sun to rule the day and the moon the night now many people misread this like they misread a lot of this

Chapter to say that God created the Sun and the moon on the fourth day But it doesn't say that look carefully what it's saying and verses 14 to 19 about the fourth day

That the Sun of the moon would have been created like the rest of the universe in verse 1. It only says that God made them

To be over the day and the night to be lights for different times

He made them to have a particular purpose to serve a certain role. Like maybe you've been made to be over a class of children or Made to be over a kitchen or made to be over a cash register

It doesn't mean that you were created at that time You know if you just said I've been made a teacher in the school system, you don't say wow

You were just born yesterday. No, we understand you resisted beforehand and you were given a role

You were made in that sense to be a teacher or a manager or a chef So here again from the perspective of the earth

Where the scene is being played out the Sun is given the the role of dominating the sky

Which is now apparently mostly clear and the moon a lesser role at night

And the fifth day from versus 20 to 23 God creates the aquatic animals and the birds Living creatures in the air and the water suddenly filling what had been the uninhabited earth swarming with swarms

It says in verse 20 teeming with life and notice in verse 21. There's that word again barah from verse 1

Created as in created out of nothing here animal life is

Created Did you know that science still has no explanation for how life came about? It doesn't now some scientists

They keep trying to prove that it could have been the product of just time and chance somehow inanimate

Chemicals in the water somehow came together and form some kind of life, but they still haven't managed to be able to do it

The British philosopher Anthony Flew who had been an outspoken atheist who had been unconvinced

From all the arguments for the existence of God even directly from CS Lewis. He had heard

CS Lewis himself Arguing for the existence of God unconvinced by Lewis He came to believe in the existence of God by the fact that life is too complex

To have come about by chance that there is no natural explanation for the origins of life

And here we see that life doesn't arrive here in chapter 1 that life does not arise

Randomly just by chance you throw enough chemicals together and the right temperature Maybe hit it with lightning or whatever you have to do to it and somehow it comes alive

Does it work? Life does not come out randomly from inanimate matter.

It is created by God The sixth day in verses 24 to 31 comes in two parts first the creation of the land animals

He says he made them according to their kinds in that phrase. I also use it earlier with plants here, though He repeats it there often pizza four times showing the enormous variety of animals according to their kinds according to their kinds

What Martin Luther called God's footprints of this variety of animal life God's footprints.

Otherwise, you could see he's been there signs of God's creativity and God saw

It was good The second part of day six begins in verse 26 both on day six shows that were

Related to the animals in a way, but then distinct Begins in verse 26

God consults with himself. He doesn't do that for anything else. He didn't consult himself for the animals Here comes something special.

Here's the pinnacle of creation God said let us interesting a singular

God Speaking to himself in the plural Let us make man and Hebrew Adam or Adam in our image after our likeness

Now theologians debate what the image of God is what I mean to be in the likeness of God But whatever it is

It sets us apart from the animals That's the purpose of that here in this chapter made on the same day as the animals

But something is distinct about us were made in the likeness the image of God They're not we are like God in the way.

The animals are not we're unique and So let them have dominion rule Over all the animals

Who are we? We are made in the image of God We includes all people human race

Generally, no exceptions. It doesn't mean that Some people some nations here that Israelites there in the image of God the pagans aren't no it doesn't exclude any race or any age group those who want to treat other races as beasts or some stages of human life as Dispensable too young or too old they show that they don't really accept that all people are

God's image bearers Know yourself We are also

Created as male and female second half of verse 27 emphasizes both male and female are made in the image of God That's very different particularly this time in his age when this was written

Aristotle the Greek philosopher He didn't believe women were humans. I don't know what he thought they were.

They're just like animals. You just use them But here women to both male and female are made in the image of God So what kind of sexism that denigrates women is not from God?

It's a sign of the inspiration of Scripture that that is that the Bible comes from God It's not just a product of its ancient culture of its ancient times and we've risen so far above that Maybe we think smuggler.

Well, I can appreciate the ethics, but the poetry but we know so much better It's kind of smug attitude.

We know so much better than it does because it's just a product of its culture. No, it's not in the very first chapter

That women are made just as much an image of God as our men shows that this does not come from their culture

It comes from God. There's no way that their culture believe that God told him that Also, the sexes were made by God sexual identity.

There's being male or female is not a Social construct is not something society assigns.

You're not born at the doctor I'm gonna sign this person just randomly through a dart at the dartboard it lands on male.

I'm gonna make him a boy It's not something assigned by society It's a divine construct which is signed by God God made it

God made us equally in the image of God But distinctly either male or female and we know from biology

The sexual identity is objective that is it's in every cell in our body and it is unchangeable

You can't change your sex. It is that way because we know from this passage

That God made us male and female so in this one verse Made in the image of God it destroys racism

Sexism Transsexuality deceptively now called transgenderism it also shows the value of all human life the child in the womb is made in the image of God the

Elderly person in the nursing home who can't live by himself is made in the image of God No kind of human being because of race or sex or age is any less in God's image than any other

Then in verse 28 God gives us a mission multiply and Subdue the earth before he had blessed the plants the animals to multiply here he gives it to us as a command a mission complete the work he began of Making the earth which remember from verse 2 was disordered was

Uninhabited was sterile and he's been working to fill it and now he gives that mission to us that work to us

Make it a fit place to live and fill it with image bearers be life cultivators fruitful and fertile now for the

Canaanites Fertility either for their crops or their animals or for their wives multiplying people abundantly was it an obsession?

One of the promises of the idol Baal Baal actually in Hebrew, but one of the promises of Baal was that he would grant fertility to the worshiper in Verse 11 though We are shown that the land is fertile because the

Lord spoke his word and commanded it To bear fruit in verse 20 and 22 the

Lord the waters swarm Teeming with life at his command his command has created life and finally in verse 28 he does the same with us to be fruitful and Multiply he even gives us the food in verse 29 to sustain us

That's why we pray before eating since our food comes From God and so Genesis is telling us that fertility doesn't come from worshipping these idols

They're promising fertility these idols they had either their idols then or our idols now our idols of money things matter bodies science

Indeed living for matter living for dead things like cash cars houses and jewelry that leads to infertility

The materialistic cultures have declining birth rates below replacement rates

So population is declining in them the more materialistic they are the deader they become living for dead things leads to deadness

If you think a lifeless universe is your creator You're gonna end up being lifeless yourself

Fertility is a gift from the one true God life comes from God's Word and the word is

God in him the Word of God incarnate Is life?

Know yourself Who are you? You're a creature called into being by the

Word of God like the rest of creation, but over the rest of creation more deliberately created

Created an image of God to give it a rank above the rest. Not just an animal. There's a

TV show back Animals are people too. No, they're not We're not just animals.

We're not a naked ape We're not a mere product of time and chance The myth of chance began with people saying we could do better without God that free of God that humanity could then rise to new heights

Now it has ended with people being reduced to the level of beast if we don't like a race

We say that oh, they're they're rats and can be exterminated like the Nazis did If we find some people inconvenient, we say that they're not persons yet.

And so it's my body my choice But what about ourselves Let me say that people think like that.

That's that's absurd. That's disturbed. But what does our behavior show? Did we spend so much on our material things?

material luxuries even our pets They're good things, right? But do we spend so much all on that that we have little leftover for Very good things for missions or charity for other image bearers

Does our spending our priorities show that we understand the difference between what is what is very good people made in the image of God and what is merely good

Does it know yourself six times God says it is good

Then finally after he has made humanity he sees it all and proclaims

It is very good In verse 31, it's a seventh a final concluding celebration declaration of goodness

Only with humanity is the creation the universe reached that level of very goodness

So if God's of pleasure in his creation So should we? after all

It is very good Know yourself You're made in God's image and God is spirit so you're not just physically not just material but also spiritual

We were created to be like God the Creator So we can make like he can make we can't create but we can make and we were given a mission work

To continue God's work of making the earth make it ordered and full of life and like God We not only have work

We have rest That's why there's the day of rest that seventh day beginning in chapter 2

I got himself rest and so creates a time set apart Called holy he sanctified it in verse 3 that is consecrated for putting aside our attention

We usually give to the creation and instead look to the Creator Now even if you believe like me that Christ has fulfilled the

Sabbath law and so you're free still we see Even if free from the law that we have a need for rest

We are free of a Sabbath law But not of a Sabbath need

We were all made. It's in our bones It's in our DNA. It's in the image that we are made in to need a day of rest a

Time to turn away from the material to the spiritual to focus on the

Creator That's why we're here and That day never ends.

Did you notice that? Notice that there's no evening and there's no morning for the seventh day. There's no end to it.

Not like the other six days Because God has rested and is resting from his first creation

Know yourself This is where we come from This is who we are Image bearers with a divine mission under the infinite eternal

God at rest What about God who is he

Someone said God created man in his image and ever since man has been trying to return the favor Have you created a

God in your image your imagination? Who is like you a lot like you who you think is there to help you get more?

Material more matter keep your body. Well We don't know ourselves

If we don't know God We don't comprehend that the magnitude of what

God did when he became man When he came in the flesh in matter

Came as Jesus what he did on the cross because so often we don't comprehend who we are

How small we are one of the tragedies of our time only recently science began to see how

Enormous this universe is and yet at the same time. We're so Eric. We've forgotten.

We're just creatures. We've forgotten How big God is? He's the

Creator We know a lot more about how big the universe is We've forgotten who the

Creator is. It's infinite transcendent and Forgotten there were not

God the miracle is that the eternal omnipotent infinite

God Would sacrifice for us mere creatures limited small small infant so tiny sinful creatures when we understand who

God is as the creed puts it God Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and who we are mere creatures