Behold Our God

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Supremacy of God Revealed in Genesis 1

Well, as I mentioned at the onset, we are looking today at the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 1. And we will be looking together at verses 1 through 25. And before we get into the text, I want to recount a story that I heard a number of years ago.

I'm reminded of a story that I once heard Paul Washer share a number of years ago as he detailed one of his visits. As he detailed one of his visits to a local church that he had been preaching at. As he took his church through, or this church, through a detailed survey of the attributes of God, during one of the breaks between sessions, a man who had been a long-time member of the church, came to Brother Paul and confronted him.

And he explained that he had been a Christian for decades. And that he had been a churchgoer for nearly all of his life. And his contention was this. That as he heard about God's holiness, as he heard about his sovereignty, and his justice, and his wrath, and his grace, he realized something.

That despite his being a Christian for as long as some of us have been alive, he had never, ever, even once, heard about a God like this. And he sat in his chair, and as he sat there, he heard about a God who made the world.

And who sovereignly rules over it. Who is angry with sin. And who sent his only begotten son to be a substitute. Sent him to the cross as a penal substitute for sinners. And as he sat there, and he heard about this God, he was furious.

He was incensed and enraged at the fact that his God would be portrayed in this light. He went up to Paul Washer during that break, and he let him have it. And he exclaimed that this God, whose attributes he was, Brother Paul was bringing out of scripture, this was not the God that he served.

Such attributes were altogether foreign to him. And he made it perfectly clear that he would never worship a God like that. Worship this God that he was hearing about from the pages of sacred scripture.

And Brother Paul commented on this experience and said, this is what happens when you don't teach your church the biblical attributes of God. They will worship a God. They will worship some God. They will worship any God, but they will not worship the God of the Bible.

And over the years, I have seen this phenomenon firsthand for myself. And I'm sure some of you have as well. That as you hear people describe the God that they worship, you ask yourselves, where in the Bible is that God found?

Or as you relate to someone, the God who you worship, they look at you with bewilderment. Who is this God? When one draws a crowd through a charismatic personality, or appealing music, or silly anecdotes, but never teaches and preaches the true nature of the God of the Bible, professing Christians in these churches are left with a conception of God that is small, that is inaccurate, that is frankly pitiful.

And the results couldn't be more devastating. I'm reminded of a quote from A .W. Tozer who once said this. He said, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

For this reason, he writes, the gravest question before the church, before all of you this afternoon, is always God Himself. And the most important fact about any man is not what he is at any given time, what he says, or what he does, but what he, in his deepest heart, conceives God to be like.

And oh, how I have found this to be undeniably true. What we believe about God bleeds into every single aspect of our lives. A weak view of God leads to weak thinking. A weak view of God leads to weak praying, to weak believing, to impotent living.

And it can be very easy for us to sit in this room and think that all of these problems are on the outside of these four walls. And yet I would suggest that this weakness affects not only other Christians, but us as well.

Even for every single one of us in this room, wittingly or unwittingly, we seek to domesticate the living and true God. We have been inclined to tame Him intentionally, or for some of you, unintentionally.

I imagine most of you. Each one of us has endeavored to mold Him to one degree or another into our image and likeness. And the result, dear Christian, I can say with confidence, as a result, I can say, your God is too small.

You might sit here and think, I have a massive conception of God. My God is almighty. He is all-powerful. He is all-sovereign. Let me tell you, your God is too small. I don't care if you are a five-point Calvinist and you've got the solas of the Reformation on the spine of your Bible.

Your God is too small. If you read Owen and Beaky and Bavinck and Voss, that matters not. Your God is too small. If you sing the best hymns, if you attend a sound church, your God is too small. And our stunted view of God is, without a doubt, impacting.

Oh, it impacts every facet of our lives. And while I am not going to be able to perfectly remedy all of that today, my aim is this, that as we open our Bibles to Genesis 1 and look at verses 1 -25, what we are going to see is the all-surpassing supremacy of our God.

We are going to see a God who is majestic in all of His ways, who possesses sovereign creative powers. We are going to see the weightiness and the grandeur of the living God whom we serve. In these first 25 verses of Genesis 1, the word God is repeated 25 times.

Almost every single verse. And when there is a missing one in one verse, it doubles up in the next verse. And I firmly believe that it is because God would have us not simply to behold His creation in this first chapter of Genesis, but to behold our God in all of His magnificence.

To behold Him above all things in this chapter on His creation. And so, if you haven't already turned there to Genesis 1, I invite us, let us behold God together. And I want to start with just the first three words in Genesis 1 in verse 1, in the beginning.

The Book of Genesis and the Toledot Structure

Now, whenever we start a new book in Scripture, we miss a key opportunity. If we do not take a moment to at least familiarize ourselves with the principle themes of the book. Get an overview, a 37 ,000 foot view of the book of Genesis.

And that title, Genesis, where does that come from? It comes actually from the Septuagint, that is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. And we can trace that word Genesis all the way back. You might see it on your page, or you might have to flip a page, but to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 4.

Where we read there, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. In the Septuagint, that word generations is the Greek word Genesis, from which we get our English word Genesis. And that word Genesis really does capture all that this book is about.

Genesis recounts the origins of the world, the first generations of humanity, and the beginning of the nation of Israel. And while it's possible to look at the structure of Genesis from a number of different angles, it's widely recognized that Genesis is structured around 11 key phrases known as Toledots.

I'm not sure if you've ever heard that word before. What in the world does that mean? It means that at 11 different places in Genesis, this Hebrew phrase appears, Elei Toledot, which can be translated, these are the generations.

Or sometimes we see in the Septuagint, these are the Genesis, the Geneses. In Genesis chapter 2 and verse 4, we read, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. That is the only impersonal Toledot.

And then after that, we have personal Toledots, the generations of men through the early ages of the world. In Genesis chapter 5 and verse 1, we read about the generations of Adam. In chapter 6 and verse 9, about the generations of Noah.

And then in chapter 10 and verse 1, the generations of the sons of Noah. If you want some of these references afterwards, I can give them to you as well. I don't want you to be frantically noting them all down.

Genesis chapter 11 and verse 10, the generations of Shem. And then 11 -27, Terah, the father of Abram. And then 25 -12, the generations of Ishmael. And then 25 -19, Isaac. And then 36 -1, and then again in verse 9, Esau.

And then finally, in Genesis 37 -2, Eletoledot. These are the generations of Jacob and of his sons, the 12 tribes of Israel. In Genesis, Moses, who is widely affirmed as the author in scripture and in other historical writings, covers a larger swath of history than all of the other biblical books combined.

Because where he takes us is from eternity past to Israel's sojournings in Egypt. And using these 11 Toledots, he shows us how we came to be. And how we fell into sin. How the world was uncreated and recreated through water.

How sin persisted. How men tried to take matters into their own hands. And then, even yet, how a righteous and merciful God would keep his promises to Adam and to Abraham to bring about a mighty nation.

And through that nation, to bring the offspring who would crush the head of the serpent and restore creation back to its pre-fall condition. This is Genesis. This is how it begins. In the beginning. And now what I want us to look at are three brief points that are going to paint for us, I think, a grander and more majestic and more glorious vision of the God who we worship.

In verse 1, we read, In the beginning, and in that fourth word, God created the heavens and the earth. Verse 2, 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.

God Over Creation

The first of three points that I want to bring before you is this. The God over creation. The God over his creation. In the first four words of Genesis, Moses takes us back to an aeon where there was no earth.

Where there was no sun. Where there was no universe. No matter in fact. But rather to a time when there was only God. The first subject in the entire Bible, if you look at that first sentence, and you're a bit of a grammar geek like me, the first subject of the first sentence in the Bible is God.

And not creation. And not man. And not the universe. And not the world. But God. Here Moses employs a title for God that will become the second most frequently used word in the Old Testament.

After the word Lord.

It is here that we are introduced to the main character of the Bible and the central figure of our human existence. And notice here that there is no attempt at any apologetic argument for the existence of God.

Moses feels no need to defend God and his existence even for a moment. But it's simply the case that God is. And why is that? Because deep down in every human heart, no matter how much the knowledge of God has been suppressed, we know this to be true.

That in the beginning, God. And in this scene where God creates the heavens and the earth, the spirit of God, we're told, was hovering over the face of the waters. We come to learn a great deal about the nature of this God over his creation as we look more closely at this.

As Moses introduced God, he used the term Elohim, that fourth word in your Genesis chapter 1, Elohim. But there's something unique about this word. He could have used Elohim in the singular, which is what we might expect, but instead he uses it in the plural.

Now, again, why in the world would Moses do that? God is one. The Lord your God is one. Why is it in the plural? Well, it has become known as the plural of majesty. That this title, even as Moses employs the first subject in the Bible, is teaching us a great deal.

And two very important concepts. That in the Hebrew Bible, this plural of majesty conveyed the fullness of God's deity. Dear friends, that we are not being introduced to God, lowercase g. We're not being introduced to a God.

A common God amongst many gods. But we are being introduced to God. God of very gods. The plural in this Hebrew word seeks to capture the essence of his, and I've chosen these words very carefully, peerless majesty.

That he is without peer. He is without equal. He is alone, set apart in the heavens, doing all that he pleases. He stands alone at the hierarchy of the cosmos, and there is no equal. And secondly, this plural has been recognized by theologians as something that hints to, and I think you know where I'm going here, the triune nature of God.

In the words of one commentator, it indicates the plural nature of God. That God is one. Make no mistake, I am not questioning that. That God is one. But God is also three distinct persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so in this first subject in all of the Bible, we learn that our God stands alone. He is set apart. Dear brothers and sisters, He is God. In the inauguration of time, we read about the spirit of this God hovering over the waters.

Now again, what does this convey? When God created the world, it was still yet unordered. It was unfilled with the diversity of life that we have grown accustomed to. Yet the mention of the spirit of God indicates that He is about to bring order to this formless sphere in a way that we as Christians can relate to.

I want you to pay attention to this concept. We see that it has always been the role of the spirit of God to grant life to that which is inanimate and without light. It was not at the moment of our regeneration that the spirit of God entered into the business of giving life, but from the moment of creation itself as our planet hung there in the universe, darkened, formless, and the spirit hovered over the waters.

That spirit was there for a purpose, that God was about to bring life to that sphere. We read about this in Job 33, verse 4. If you want to turn there with me more briefly. There, as this exchange happens in the book of Job, we see that it's written, the spirit of God, Job 33, verse 4, the spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

That it is the breath of God that gives life not only to the believer, but to the planet in which we live. And in case you're not compelled by that, Psalm 104, verse 30. When you send forth your spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground.

What a marvelous thing that our immutable God has not changed even one bit, but the same spirit that enlivens the heart of Christians today is the same spirit of God that enlivened the world at creation.

And then in this opening scene in Genesis, we see an aspect of the triunity of our God. Of the Father working in harmony with the Spirit. And as we will see in a short time, the role of the Son in creation as well.

Preparing a habitation for humanity. One commentator says on a large scale, this sets forth a singular message about the character and works of God. If we're prepared to see it, even in these first two verses, we learn enough about God to fuel a lifetime of worship for Him.

And we can begin to glean some of the attributes that we would do well to pay attention to, lest we too run the risk of rejecting the Holy God of Scripture. Now I can't do a thorough treatment, but I want to run through just a couple here.

That here, just in these first two verses, we capture a glimpse of the unity of God. Of the singularity of God. Here we see what the Hebrew Shema repeats in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 4. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

That God is alone. That He is one. And He is in a category all His own. He says in Isaiah 44, 6, and this is a great passage to note if you're expecting Mormon missionaries one day, to speak about the singular nature of God.

Isaiah 44, 6, I am the first and I am the last. Besides me there is no God. Who is like me? Let Him proclaim it. Let Him declare and set it before me. Since I appointed an ancient people, let them declare what is to come and what will happen.

Fear not, nor be afraid. Have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses. Is there a God besides me? There is no God. I know not any. Here we see the aseity of God. What has been called sometimes the self-existence or independence of God.

That Latin phrase ase means from Himself. Meaning God Himself is self-existent. Before anything that was made was made. God was independent. He was doing fine without us. And yet He chose to make creation.

We read in Acts 17, 24 The God who made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth does not live in temples made by man nor is He served by human hands but what? As though He needed anything since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

Here we see the omnipresence of God. The same God who hovered over the face of the deep is the same God who is in all places at all times. He is the same God who is at work with you when you go to work again tomorrow or to school.

He is the same God who will be with you in your moments of trial and temptation this week. To think of it for a moment, He is the same God. That same God who hovered over the face of the waters. Who is present with us now in this room.

Observing us. Receiving. We pray our worship offered to Him. Where shall we go from your spirit? You read in Psalm 139. Where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, God, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your hand shall hold me. We learn about the eternality of God.

There was a time when this world and everything in it was not. But that has never, ever, ever been the case with God. That before the mountains were brought forth and the earth was formed and the world from everlasting to everlasting, Psalm 90 says, He is God.

And we learn about the sovereignty and the omnipotence of God. Here we see that one who has the power to create planets and moons and suns and stars and galaxies is God alone. That God Himself is King over His creation.

He transcends. He is not a part of His creation, but He transcends His creation and rules over all of the affairs of the universe. We do not possess even life within ourselves, but God grants life to all whom He pleases.

It is not the darkened places of the world that generate life, but the Spirit of God in believers and in unbelievers. Our God is in the heavens and He does all that He pleases. Now we could go through and look at how I believe this still teaches more the spirituality of God and the wisdom and knowledge of God, the goodness of God, the freedom of God, the glory of God.

But we'll park it there. Such a knowledge of God from just these two verses should be, dear saints, almost too much for us to bear. That this God is true. That He is alive and He is the God. He is not your God, but He is the God of all the universe.

And our conception of God must conform to this God. Such a knowledge is enough to bring us to our knees, ought to be in humble adoration before the author of life. It is enough to stop our boastful mouths before the almighty maker of heaven and earth.

Such a God cannot be contained or controlled. He cannot be molded to our likeness. He does not conform to our sensibilities. But we must simply stand before Him in awe that this is the God who made us.

And we know how the story is ending. And this is the God who has redeemed us. It reminds me of a story from the Westminster Assembly. When the Westminster Assembly met in the 1640s to prepare what became the Westminster Shorter Catechism, they came to this question,.

What is God?

And I love that we are memorizing, for those who are, the Baptist Catechism because the exact same question and the exact same answer appear in our catechism. So that is a blessing to behold as I was speaking about this with my children.

My daughter could finish the answer to this question. What is God? And the men of the assembly were so impressed by, so taken aback by this question, What is God? That for a time, no one spoke a word.

This is the Westminster Assembly. So some of the most brilliant Puritan minds that we know of are sitting in this room. And the question is asked,.

What is God?

And there was silence. And then finally, after a long consideration, and I think some of our young men can probably relate to this, the assembly asked the youngest Scotch commissioner, a man named George Gillespie, to lead them in prayer and to ask for help.

And so as he led them in prayer, he began this way. He said, God, O God, Thou Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in Thy being,.

Wisdom,.

Power,.

Holiness, justice,.

Goodness,.

And truth. He led off his prayer with those words. And as he led off that prayer, a bunch of his other Puritan friends were writing down notes, what it was that he was saying. And as they came to the end of the prayer, they said, Not only has he prayed this prayer, but the Lord, through his prayers, provided the answer.

And so if we ask one of my children after the service, or some of the others who have been memorizing this catechism, What is God? God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable,.

In His being, wisdom,.

Power,.

Holiness,.

Justice,.

Goodness,.

And truth. And there was not one amendment that was suggested that God is all of these things. That He cannot be separated from His attributes. And let me ask you, Is that the God that you serve? Or do you have a small God?

The God that you have fashioned? Rather than the scriptures fashioned in your mind. But this account of creation continues. In verse 3, we read this. And God said, Let there be 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. 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 in which there 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 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 to give light upon the earth.

And it was so. And God made the two 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 the 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 waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.

So God created the 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 and the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening, and there was morning, the fifth day. And then we'll look together at the first half of the sixth day.

Verse 24,. 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.

The Creation of God and the Six Days of Genesis

And God saw that it was good. We first looked at God over His creation. And now I want us to look together at the creation of God. The creation of God. Time simply will not allow us to look at every verse in detail.

But I want to hit some of the important highlights. Some of these non-negotiable truths that once we see them, we cannot unsee them. And they will paint a far more majestic and wise and glorious picture of our God than we had at the beginning of this sermon.

As we look carefully at each day in God's creative work, we find that there is a standard formula in each creative act that is unveiled in seven parts. Every day that is created is created completely.

It is created good. And we see each of these ingredients, each of these standards in each act. In every act, in every day, we see an announcement that is number one, where we read God said. At every day, God said in this announcement.

Number two, we see a command that God not only says, but that He commands. And He says, let there be, and we can fill in the blank. With every one of His announcements and every one of His commands, we find number three, a fulfillment that it was so.

Number four, we read about the execution of that fulfillment. That the earth brought forth this. That light was. Number five, we read about the approval of this creative act. That God, in His text, we read it says, God saw that it was good.

Number six, the subsequent words that appear. When we read that God called the day and then number seven, we see the day numbered. The first day, the second day, the third day. In every instance, for the five and a half days that we are looking at today, each creative act begins with this formula, these seven standards.

And each begin with those words, God said. This phrase appears in our Bibles 10 times in the first chapter of Genesis. And it speaks to God making everything out of nothing. Now there is a Latin term that is often used.

I'm not sure if you can think of it in your mind. It is ex nihilo. Ex nihilo, literally meaning out of nothing. To describe God's miraculous works of creation. Now we, dear saints, have taken this for granted.

We look at this and say, of course, ex nihilo. He created everything out of nothing. There was nothing and then there was everything. And then we go on to verse 26. But let me ask you, is that not something that should just blow our minds that our God made absolutely everything.

The wood in this pulpit is not from us. It is not from the builder. It is not from the hardware store. But this itself is from God coming from nothing at all by the power of his word. Imagine for a moment that I were to put you, I know some of you like knitting, that I were to put you in a sterile room, a white room with absolutely nothing in it except for you.

And I said to you, I want you to knit for me a scarf. Now if you were in your living room you might reach for yarn to begin making this knitted scarf. Now what if I said to you, I want you to present to me yarn.

Well, you'd say, I need a bag of wool or of cotton to prepare that yarn. Well, what if I were to put you in that sterile room and I were to deprive you of knitting needles and yarn and wool and access to sheep or any other material that you would need to make that scarf and I were to say, I want you to stay here until you knit that scarf.

I could come back in an eternity of eternities and what I would find is this, that you would be sitting in that room and in your own imagination you could describe that scarf, you could describe the material that it is made of, the colors that are weaved into it, the texture when you hold it in your hands, but I can tell you with certainty you will never be able to present that scarf.

It will be you and your imagination and empty hands, but God in that sterile environment, free from even matter, made the heavens and the earth. If I were to put you in that room, free of matter, save you and say, never mind a scarf, just make me one speck of dust, just one speck of dust, one grain of sand, you would be there for an eternity of eternities with nothing but empty hands and nothing to show for it.

God did not bring a sweater into being. He did not bring a solitary stone into being, but he brought a universe into being with billions of galaxies and solar systems and black holes and mountains and oceans and vegetation and plant life and billions of animals and birds and swarms of living creatures and man, ex nihilo.

And we read about this creative marvel in Hebrews 11 in verse 3, when we read this, and this is an act of faith for us because the author of Hebrews says it is, that by faith we understand the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible, but it was made, ex nihilo, by the creative word and the power of God's word.

On day one, in verses 3 through 5, we read that God created light to separate the day from the night. The same God of whom we are told in 2 Corinthians 4,.

That said,.

Let light shine out of darkness. This is the same God who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. The same God who spoke life into being is the same God who spoke life into your heart through the gospel of Christ.

On the second day, in verses 6 through 8, we read that God separated the waters into an expansive atmosphere above. And in the words of one commentator, I think all of these words are important, he says, a benevolent system of clouds, springs, and rivers.

The water was ordered for our good, but was also available to purge the earth of life after the fall. On the third day, in verses 9 through 13, we see that God separated the earth from the waters and formed landmasses and oceans.

And upon that land, he placed plant life and vegetation to yield seeds and fruit, each according to their kind as God had ordained. Just think of one seed and the amount of information contained in just one seed.

All the building blocks for that plant that is to come. Every single one of them, God created. On day 4, in verses 14 through 19, we read that God created the sun and the moon and the celestial bodies.

I appreciate what one man says about this, thinking about what the early minds would have thought in Moses' day as he writes this book and as he recounts how it is that God created the sun and the moon.

He says, the sun and moon are creatures, not gods. Unlike the Hittite sun god, they are not from eternity. Unlike the Egyptian sun god, they do not rule. The sun and moon are simply assigned the role of lighting the earth and ruling the day and night as surrogates of God.

He says, this is quite a lowly function by ancient Near Eastern standards. Finally, the stars, widely worshipped and often regarded as controllers of human destiny, we should not have horoscopes as Christians.

You should not be going to the corner store and getting the scroll at the checkout. Why? Because, though they are widely worshipped and often regarded as controllers of human destiny, they're mentioned almost as an afterthought and they too are merely creatures.