Main idea: God created everything! Worship the Creator God, who is Father, Son and Spirit, for His goodness and greatness.
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Welcome. My name is Nathan, like Ian said, I'm one of the pastors here also, and I just want to welcome all of you here, really glad that you're here with us this morning. Let's all stand if you're able to, and we will read God's Word together. We're continuing in our series in Genesis today. We'll probably be studying genesis for a long time, so the Genesis part of your Bible will get really familiar. It won't be crispy anymore. It probably wasn't already. But anyway, Genesis chapter one, I'm gonna read one through five. And our theme we thinking about is trusting God's grace in a fallen world. All throughout Genesis, we see what we just sang about, God is gracious. He's great and he's good, and he loves and saves people out of a fallen world. He gives grace the world is fallen with sin and brokenness and the curse of sin, and so we need God's grace. And so we see the beginnings of it here in Genesis, one, one through five. Let's read it together. 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. God called the light day and the darkness, he called night. There was evening and there was morning, the first day. Thanks be to God. I'm supposed to say, this is the word of the Lord, and you say, Thanks be to God, I got that wrong first service. I wonder if everybody was being quiet because I forgot to say the right thing. Anyway, this is the word of the Lord. Yeah, we're thankful that it's God's word to us so we can know Him. So let's pray together. God. We thank You for Your word. It is your word to us so we can know you. We bow before you. We worship you. To know you the Creator God, to think that you made us in your image, to be your sons and daughters, to live with you on this beautiful earth that proclaims and declares your glory and your greatness and your goodness, God, we are in awe of your kindness, your grace to us. Not only you would create us in your image, but when we rebelled against you, when we reject you, you came to us through Christ, Jesus. You are the God man. You came to earth. You became human being. You lived the perfect life. You died in our place, and you rose again. We worship You, Jesus. You are the Lamb of God, slain for us so that we could live with you forever. Thank you, Jesus. Help all of us who are part of this church, who have committed to serving you here in this church, to do so with your joy, with your strength, following your word, filled with your with you, filled with your Spirit and your word. Help us to be faithful as your disciples, who make disciples by your grace. Pray for everyone who's here you would. Minister to all of us through Your word and your spirit and as it were, hover over this place and minister as your word is preached, as your word is read. Help us to know you, to see your goodness and greatness and to worship you. God, we pray for our world. Our world is a broken place in need of much grace. We pray for our leaders, leaders of the United States of America, leaders of countries all around the world, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine, many other places. God, so much need for your grace, that you would give leaders wisdom, that they would rule with justice, with righteousness. We pray for leaders in Venezuela. We pray for all these situations. God, there's no there's no hope of peace in the world apart from you. Christ, you are the Prince of Peace. We pray Lord Jesus Come, come quickly, come and bring peace. In the meantime, God, we pray for situations to continue to be made, where your word can be proclaimed, where your children can flourish and make other disciples. We want to see the nations coming to you and worshiping you. Thank you that you are drawing them help us and this church to be faithful. We pray for other churches around our city. We pray for Trinity Church in the valley, for Paul funchess and Jeremy Kuhn and Dan Ferguson and all the members there that you would help them to faithfully serve you now we pray for our purity that all of us would be holy as you are holy. We would be loving as you are loving. We would be your people who represent and reflect you to the world around us. Help us now, as we look at your word, we pray in Your Name Jesus amen may be seated. Our theme verse for this morning, which I hope you'll memorize if you haven't already, is Genesis. One, one in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. If you haven't already memorized it, by the time I'm done, you're going to have heard it 20 times, and hopefully you will have that memorized in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. God created everything, and in doing that, he shows us that He is great. Consider the universe. The scientists say that the part of the universe we can see, which isn't the whole thing, because there's way more out there than we can actually see, is 93 billion light years in diameter. If you're not a math person, some of you are math people, but if you're not, diameter is to take a doughnut from one side. The donut to the other side of the donut, straight line. That's a diameter. The diameter of the universe, of the part we can see with our massive instruments is 93 billion light years. That's how big the part of the universe we can see is, let alone all the part we can't see. It's massive. What is a light year? It's how fast you could travel if you were going to speed of light for an entire year, for 365 days, which would be approximately 6 trillion miles. Trillion 6 trillion miles, you would travel in one light year. 93 billion light years. 93 billion times 6 trillion that is 5.58 with 23 zeros after it. I don't know how to say that. There's a way to say it, probably. But 5.58 was 23 zeros. That's how big the universe is. Massive. Every single galaxy, and there's hundreds of billions of galaxies, has hundreds of billions of stars in it. I can't count that high. You can. You can either, if you could, it would take your whole life and you wouldn't finish that is massive. And God says in Isaiah 40 that you can measure the entire universe with the span of his hand. This How far is that? You know, maybe eight inches, seven inches, six inches. I don't know. It's not that far God can measure the entire universe. How massive is God? God created the heavens and the earth. He is great. Is anyone like that? Out of nothing, he could create that universe? God is great beyond measure. We can barely manage cooking a meal with multiple elements and watching our kids at the same time. At least I can. Maybe some of you are better at it than I am, but it's hard for us to manage a few things. God can create all that with just the word of his mouth. What an amazing God we serve. Not only do we see God's greatness, but in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth shows us that God is good. He is good. How do we know he's good? Have you seen how pretty the flowers are at Manito gardens? Maybe they're starting to die now, that's getting cold, but like a week ago, they were amazing. If you haven't been to Manito gardens, have you been to Trader Joe's and looked in the flower section? Cheapest flowers in town? The price really good, though, nice flowers. God is glorious. How colorful are the flowers? How many different colors? Have you tasted delicious ice cream on a hot summer day? Maybe tillamooks new flavors, the chocolate, the brownie batter, chocolate or the chocolate hazelnut. Tillamook, highly recommend. It's delicious. Have you ever tasted a freshly baked pizza out of a pizza oven with thin, delicious dough and a zesty tomato sauce and gooey cheese and flavorful sausage and crisp basil and onions? God's goodness, the flavors we enjoy in a week in Spokane. So much abundance of flavor. It's God's goodness. Have you ever seen a sunrise or a sunset over the lake or an ocean? How beautiful is the glory of the orange and the yellow and the red bursting out of the clouds? It's amazing. That is God's glory. It's not black and white. It's not like TV back when some of us were kids. It's amazing. Have you ever jumped into a swimming pool or priest lake on a hot day and enjoyed the coolness of the water? Have you ever held a baby in your arms? There's a baby here that was born on Monday, where they're sitting, but they're here now, back there, in the back. Good job. Shannon, baby holding a baby in your arms. God's glory and a baby making that new life. Have you ever hugged your mother or your friend or a child or your spouse? Have you
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ever taken a deep breath of air God made it right, the right composition so we could live. Have you ever finished working a hard day and felt the satisfaction of a hard day's work and the goodness of rest? Have you ever had a good night's sleep where you woke up feeling refreshed? Some of you maybe not very often, but it's a wonderful thing right to wake up feeling refreshed in the morning. Have you ever enjoyed a conversation, individuating conversation with a friend, with about a topic that you both love, and all these things and much more you can thank God for His goodness. God is good always. He's great. Romans 119, and 20 tells us that in the creation, it's evident that there's a God. Everybody sees it, whether they acknowledge it or not. God's eternal power, His greatness, his divine attribute, his goodness as God and as father is screaming out to us in Genesis, one one in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's true. Creation itself screams out that this is true. It's evidence to every human being made. The testimony of God's greatness, his eternal power, could not be louder and stronger and clearer. The evidence of His goodness, His divine nature, as God cries out gloriously to us every day. Do we see that God is great and God is good, that he created the heavens and the earth? What's the meaning of life? Why are we here? Who is God? What is God like these and many more, are the questions that Genesis answers for us. We're going to be seeing all throughout Genesis that it's about trusting that. Finding and trusting the grace of God in a fallen world. In Genesis, one, one and two shows us the beginnings of that grace. God's given us these books of Moses, so we call the Pentateuch, the five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. He gives us these books so that we can know the God of Israel, the God of the church, the god of Jesus Christ. He gives this to us to know Him. The creation shows us who God is. But then his word, as he speaks it to us shows us exactly what God is like. In these 50 chapters of Genesis, it's broken down into 10 sections. There's 10 statements where it says, These are the generations of first one is Genesis two, four. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. And in Genesis five, one, you know, these are the generations of Adam. Each These are the generations of gives us a list of of the families that came from a person and is focused on whoever came from them. So like these are the generations of Terah. He's talking about Abraham, all of his family. And in that we see that God is creating not only heavens and earth, but he creating a people for Himself from the nations. He's creating people that he wants to to to live with and love and show himself to God. Wants a family. That's why He created Adam and Eve. That's why He created you. He wants us to be His sons and daughters. And as we get to know these people in Genesis, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, we see that they are sinful, fallen people, but they have a great Savior. They are fallen, but they have a faithful God, and that's what we get seen over and over, that it's God's grace, not something we deserve his kindness because of who he is, because of his goodness and greatness that he has relationship with us. That's good news. You don't have to try to be good enough for God to love you. You don't have to try to be good enough to be in a relationship with God. You can trust the goodness and the greatness of God that he's given you through Jesus Christ. Rest in Jesus, have relationship with God through Christ. Let's see here in Genesis, one, one and one, two, God's greatness and goodness. So first point worship the Creator God. He is great and good. Worship he's worthy. Bow down before him. Serve him. Make your life about Him, because He is the Creator. God starts with in the beginning, in the beginning. This is the starting point of all history. This is the very beginning of all that God created. This is where it all starts. What God does in Genesis, chapter one and chapter two sets the stage for everything else. We see here, the blueprint of humanity. Why God made people, what their job is on the earth. What is this? What gender is, what marriage is, what relationship should be about, what work is. We see all these things in the beginning, how God created them, very good. And so as we look at Genesis, one and two, we see what God wants for us now. We see what he's bringing about through the redemption of Christ. We see what's going to be in the end, in Revelation, 21 and 22 with a new creation, we see God's design, God's plan. God is the originator, the initiator of it all. One of us didn't send God a text message. Hey, have you thought about creating all this? No. God came up with it all on his own. It was all God's idea. God is the originator, the Creator. Then it says In the beginning, God, this word for God in the Hebrew is Elohim, and they use it to talk about gods, the gods of the nations, the gods of Egypt, the gods of of the ancient world. But in the Hebrew Bible, when it talks about our God, it's always used as a singular verb. So we got a plural noun, Elohim with a singular verb. And let's get into some grammar, which is a little sketchy at this early in the morning, but what it indicates is that we have one god who's great. He's majestic. He's over everything. He's deserving reverence in awe. I think there's maybe some examples in English language where you use like, like a plural, but you're talking about a single person, like the king or the queen. I don't know. But anyway, the point is, Elohim shows us that God is great. He is the one who deserves reverence. There's nobody like him. He's holy. Who else can make everything from nothing? Who else has always existed? God is in the beginning, he's the star of the story, and it's a relief. I'm not the star of the story. You're not the star. We're not the center. God is the center. This is about him, what he's doing. He's doing something, and he's invited us to join with him. Under his rule. History is his story, right? It's about God. God is infinite, omnipotent. Only an infinite, omnipotent, Eternal God could create. God is creating everything starts with God. When we start with ourselves and then try to interpret life through the lens of us, it doesn't make sense, right? You have to start with God. What is God? Who is God? What does God say? What is God doing? And then, then you can interpret and understand life. So I encourage you, what is the center of your life? Is God the center of your life? Have you made him the In the beginning God created? Have you made that God the center of your life? Do you know Jesus Christ, personally? Have you trusted in the Creator God by believing in Jesus, who came to earth to show us God, do you live your life focused on yourself, focused on you. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't work. When you focus on you, on me. We have to start with God in the beginning. God created. Start with God, worship Him. Submit to Him, trust Him. The next word created in the beginning, God created you. To create is something in the Hebrew Bible that only God does. If you look at the word create, this word bara in Hebrew, if you look at it, all throughout the Old Testament, there's no one else who's used as a subject. It doesn't ever say so and so created, except for God. It's never Adam created or Noah created. If God created, only God creates. It's talking about creation, in most cases, out of nothing. The Fancy word we use in I think Latin, is ex nihilo, right from nothing. God makes out of nothing. If I want to make a pie, I have to get ingredients from yolks, put them together. God could just say, Let there be pie, and it would be better than any pie you've ever tasted. If I want to make ice cream, I got to get the raw ingredients. You can tell I like ice cream. God can say, Let there be ice cream, and it's there. He doesn't need the cows that the Tillamook factory has. He can just make it. God creates out of nothing, the heavens, the ends of the earth, the North and the South, the wind, darkness and calamity, righteousness and salvation. He is the Creator, and that word creator doesn't focus on the materials that are used. It focuses on the product. God created, the heavens and the earth. Doesn't tell us what he used to make them. Just says God created and it was there, the heavens and the earth. God is the Creator out of nothing. There's nothing that's too hard for God. Nothing is impossible for him. Kids, any kids here who went to VBS, any of you kids went to VBS, or maybe some of you adults were VBS. Yes. Brainer was there? Yeah. What did Tom say, right? We said, Who made the dogs and the cats? God, right? How did God make them? He spoke, right? So the answer is, God. And then he spoke to the second question. Okay, let's all practice together. Who made the heavens and the earth? How did he make them? Exactly, God is the Creator. It wasn't some accidental thing that ooze out of him. He personally chose to create them by his great power and His wisdom. He created everything by His power. Turn over to Isaiah. Isaiah loves to use that word create, talking about God. In isaiah 40 through Isaiah 66 there's about 20 references to create. Well, I just want to look at like a couple of them with you. Isaiah 40. If you want to turn there, you can, or you can just listen isaiah 40. Verse 28 we see that God is the Creator, so we should trust in His power. Listen to Isaiah 40. Verse 28
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Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. God is the Creator. He doesn't ever get tired. If I chop some wood, I'm gonna get tired. I'll probably throw my back out. If I have to go do any kind of work, I'll get tired. You'll get tired. But God never gets tired. I run out of understanding. I'm looking at YouTube videos. I'm looking up things. I'm talking to you. I'm trying to get help figure how do I do this? God didn't have to do that. He didn't Google anything on the way of creating. He just did it. He is all wise, all knowing, beautiful, intelligent designer of everything. God is perfect, and so we should depend on him. We should wait on Him as isaiah's point. Listen to Isaiah 45 or turn over to Isaiah 45 we see more about God as the Creator. He says, I am the Lord. In Isaiah, 45 verse five, I am the Lord, and there is no other beside me. There is no God. I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun from the West that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. He is exclusive. There is no other creator. God is the only God. He says in verse seven, I form light and create darkness. I make well being and create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. See, God creates light, he creates darkness. He creates well being and calamity. He is the Creator of all of it, the darkness, the light, the calamity, the well being he creates. Verse eight, shower O, heavens from above, let the clouds rain down righteousness. Let the earth open that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit. Let the earth cause them to boast, to sprout. I the Lord, have created it. God creates salvation and righteousness. You have a people who need to be rescued from Egypt. God creates their rescue. He rescues them by creating that salvation. The people needed righteousness. They were wicked. God creates righteousness now for us in the Church, has he not created our salvation by giving us? Jesus, born of a virgin who lived a perfect life, died on the cross and rose again in that God now is giving us, making us his new creation. We are His workmanship, created in Christ. Jesus in Christ's image. God creates salvation. He creates righteousness out of nothing. You don't bring your efforts and here you go. God, take my good works and make it into something that will save me. No, He does it by the work of Christ. 100% God, He saves. Yes, we call out to Him in faith and repentance. But God creates salvation and righteousness. He creates calamity. He created when number 16, when the earth opened up and swallowed those guys who were fighting Moses and God. God created, the earth opening up and swallowing them, God creates. Why does God create? Look at Isaiah, 45 verse 17 and 18. We see why God created. But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation. You shall not put to shame or confound to all eternity. You shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity. For thus says the Lord Who created the heavens. He is God who formed the earth and made it. He established it. He did not create it empty, but formed it. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord. And there is no other God created the earth to be lived on. We're going to see in verse two that God created it without form and void. But his purpose wasn't to stop there. His purpose was that we would live there with him. God wanted a home for his people, for himself, to live with his people. That's why he created. God is good. He alone is the Creator. Someone shared with me a cartoon, and imagine this cartoon, there's a scientist who comes up to talk to God. I'm not sure how he got there, but he got there, but he comes to talk to God, and he says, Look, God, we know how to create life. Now watch, so the scientist bends down, scoops up a handful of soil. He's going to show God how they can create life. And God says, oh, no, no, no, you have to make your own dirt first. That's the difference. We can make out of stuff, right? We can take something and make something else. God creates everything from nothing. What does God create? Let's finish verse one, Genesis, one Genesis, one way. In the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. He created everything. The heavens refers to the sky, to the Universe we just talked about that's massive here. It's talking about all of it. God created everything, the atmosphere, space and the earth. The earth is his focus. He created it to live with his people. God was making a home to live with Adam and Eve and with all their sons and daughters forever. That's what God wanted. He wanted to live with his people. He created everything that is so if there's something that exists, God gets there because God created it. God created everything in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. What does this mean for us? Last week, Dan showed us how God is revealing himself through the Bible. So we should know God. So first thing from last week, seek to know God because he's revealing Himself to you. He wants you to know him, first, in the creation around you, but secondly, in His Word, most importantly, through His Word and through Christ, the Word of God, He wants you to know Him. Secondly, Dan said that God is self existent. What was the fancy word that started with an A aseity, right? God is self existent. He doesn't depend on anything else. Therefore, we should depend on God. We need we need air, we need water, we need food, we need rest. God doesn't need anything. Depend on him. He has infinite resources. Thirdly, we saw that God is eternal last week, right? He doesn't have a beginning or an end. Who could be there in the beginning to make everything? Someone who never was created, someone who is eternal, who never had a beginning. He was always there. If there isn't someone who is always there, who has the power to create, then nothing would ever exist. There has to be a first cause, right? God is eternal, and so therefore we can enjoy an eternal relationship with God with no end. God invites us to worship Him forever. Or we can have an eternal relationship with God as his enemies. You choose reject God or live with God as your Father. We saw that God is the center. We should make our lives about him. But I want to show you, within this really two broad categories of who God is that we see in Genesis. One, one, God is great and God is good. Jim Burke talks about this and quite a noisy soul. A lot of you have gone through that material, a teacher, a biblical counselor, who helps you think about how everything comes down to God is great and God is good, and we need to trust him that he's more than enough for us. Heath Lambert, a leader in ACBC, Association of Certified biblical counselors, talks about, in the biblical theology of counseling, the centrality of God's greatness and God's goodness. We all need to understand God's greatness and His goodness. And we see that clearly, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, that God is great and God is good. This verse sings loudly about God's greatness. He's always existed. Who else is like that? No beginning, no end. He has all power. He is the Almighty one, the omnipotent. No limit to his power. He can speak. And the entire universe is created. He holds up the entire universe, all those billions of stars we talked about. He knows each one of them. He leads them out. He controls them. He holds them up, the atoms in your head. They keep your head from going. The fact that there's gravity, and atoms and cells work the way they do. God is making that function. Your heart is beating. You're breathing. God is holding it all together. He is the all powerful creator. He can speak and create and then sustain it. Not only is God great in his power, but he's also the ruler. He made it like if you make a batch of cookies, you're in charge of what happens to those cookies, right? If you make a batch of cookies and I come and just take them all without your permission, it's not right? You created those cookies. You have the right to do with them as you please. You can share them with me. You could throw them in the garbage if you wanted to. They're your cookies. They should be yours, right? We are created by God. He is our ruler. We were made for him, by Him, through Him, we answer to him. Ultimately, every single human being is going to stand before God and answer to God for what we do, for who we are, for whether we submitted to him and trusted him through Christ, or whether we rebelled against Him forever. We answer to God. He's the ruler. He's the judge. No one has a higher authority than him. No world leader can say what, but I but look at my lineage. Look at my noble heritage. Aren't I with you or nobody, with a bunch of new. Their weapons and money and guns can say, look how powerful I am, and put themselves up with God. God is above every ruler, and ultimately, by the Word of His mouth, you will destroy all rulers rebelling against Him. God is the Ruler of everything. He's the judge. He is the one from whom and for whom and to whom is everything. Who else could speak and create the universe. That's how powerful God is. Is anything too hard for God? Anything he desires to create or to cause to happen he can do. He's infinite in His power and His wisdom and knowledge is infinite. He doesn't need us to give him good ideas. He doesn't need advisors or counselors. He doesn't need Google. He doesn't need YouTube. He knows everything. Nothing is too hard for him. So what should we do if this is God. God is great. He rules over everything. The question is, am I submitting to his rule the way that you live your life today, Sunday, September 22 Are you submitting to the rule of the Creator God? Are you coming under him? Saying, Yes, God, whatever you want me to do. I am your servant, your child, your creation. Secondly, God's able to do anything he chooses. He's all powerful. Do you look to Him for strength? How easy it is? Is it for us to wake up and think, I can do this? I got this, and then before we know, we've tripped on our faces, right? We need God's strength, His power, His forgiveness, his grace, his life. We need the Holy Spirit to give us life each day to help us. God has all wisdom. Do we look to Him for understanding and wisdom? Do we do proverbs 35
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trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Look to the Lord for wisdom. He is the all wise one. He's the judge of the earth. Do you fear Him and reverence him? Or do we fear more other people? Think of us whose opinion matters. He's holy, holy, holy. There's nobody like him. Do you worship him? Are you like wow, that's you God. He wants to keep showing us over and over who he is. He is full of glory. Do we behold Him and praise Him? What we see about him in creation, what we see about him in the word, what we see about him in Christ. Do we worship Him? Do we trust him in difficult situations? What does God tell job in Job 38 through 41 job or job, however you want to pronounce it, he was going through a lot of hard stuff. He lost everything. And he's saying, Why? Why is this happening to me? Have you ever said that? Why? If you're honest, most of us have, at different points we said, Why? Why Why is this so hard? Why is this hurt so much? Why is this life so full of pain and brokenness and sin, my sin, other people sin against me. Why is this so hard? What answer does God give job? If you go and read job 38 through 41 you see God's answer. God's answer to job is, where were you when I created all this? Do you know how I made this? Do you know how I made the snow? Do you know how I make the rain? Do you know how I take care of the goats on the mountain or Leviathan in the ocean? God's answer to job in the midst of all the suffering is, I am the creator. In the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth. Trust me. That's what we need to preach to ourselves. When you're going through hard things and you are wondering, Is God really great? Is God really good? Look to the greatness of God in this creation. Look at him as the creator, and then look at Christ, who died in your place on the cross and rose again. Trust in him. Look at God's word and see what it says about God. Trust in God. Mark rogop, who wrote that great book, Dark clouds, deep mercy, wrote another book called waiting on God, and he defines waiting on God like this. It's living in light of the truth of who God is, even when life doesn't make sense. Living in light of the truth of who God is, even when life doesn't make sense. That's waiting on God. We need to live in light of the truth that we see here in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. It's true even when everything else doesn't make sense. You can trust God's goodness. And then you look at Christ and what we see in the New Testament about what Jesus did. And you know, God is good, you can trust him. He's always he's always great, and he's always good. We've already been talking about it, but God is not only great, but he's good. He's always good. How many times does it say that what God made is good? In Genesis? One seven times. Genesis. One four, the light was good. God saw in Genesis. 110 the dry land and the sea were good. Genesis, 112 the vegetation and trees were good. 118 the sun, moon and stars were good. 121 the fish and the birds were good. 125 the animals that creep and crawl are good. 131 everything he made was very good, including humans made in His image. God is good, right? Psalm. 119 68 the Lord is does good, and he is good. God is good. He creates all these things to show us his goodness and His greatness. He creates good things because he is good. How good is it to be in a dark room and turn the lights on and you can see? Or, even better, to be watching the sun come up you see the light, or to see the light of the stars and the moon at night, to take a deep breath. God made air. It's good to sit on the green grass and enjoy the grass and look at the trees and eat the fruit of the trees, the plums, the pears, the kiwi. How good is it to sit and enjoy God's creation? You see His goodness and the beauty of the birds that fly around with all the different colors they are. When you go scuba diving or snorkeling, you see the pretty fish with all sparkly with all the. Colors in the ocean, and then you see God's pinnacle of his creation, man and woman made in His image. How beautiful God made people with all the capacities and skills and abilities to be God's sons and daughters. Look at your friends, your parents, your spouse, your children, your neighbors. God's glory, even those twisted by our sin, is on display. God is good. Let me take a step back from all the minutia of creation where we see God's goodness, look at the big plan. What do we see in Genesis, one and two, God created the heavens and the earth to live with man and woman on the earth. How good is God that he wants to live with us and make us his sons and daughters and his rulers that rule over his creation, to take care of the animals and take care of the garden. God's goodness is all throughout this I like to think about God creating in Genesis one as like a song. God's singing this song, and it's this beautiful song he's creating. And there's all this light and then air and expanse between the waters and then the land, and then the vegetation popping up, and all the animals and all the all the cool things God's making. It's just his goodness on display. God is so good if you're struggling to trust God's goodness, look at creation. See how good God is. And then look at Christ on the cross, and you see how good God is. He hasn't left us alone in a broken, cursed world. Look at Christ's return, what he's promising to do in the future. We know that God is good when we see creation, we see Christ. We see Christ's return that Dan was talking about the last month and a half trust God's goodness. Jim Berg, who I already mentioned, talks about God's goodness in these five ways. He says, God is well he will always meet my genuine needs. Always, he will always forgive my sin. Always, he's always up to something good in my life. Always, he will always love me personally. Always, he will always give me the grace I need. Always. God is always good in creation and in our dealing with our sin and the brokenness of the world. He is with us through Christ. So when you're discouraged, preach the greatness and the goodness of God to yourself, as you think about in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. When you're feeling prideful and forgetting about God and just thinking that you can do it all on your own, preach the goodness and the greatness of God to yourself. God is good. God is great. We should worship Him. We should bow before him and say, Wow, you're awesome. God. Second point from Genesis, one, two, trust the Father, the Spirit and the Son, who care for their creation. Trust the Father, the Spirit and the Son. We see in Genesis one, verse two, 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. The earth was without form and void. Literally, that means it was it was a wasteland and emptiness. When did it get like this? Well, in the beginning, when God created it, this is how he created it. It got there in the beginning, like this, and it was God who created it. It was dark, covered with water. When you think about a good place to live, do you think about the dark of night out in the deeps of the ocean? Is that a good place to live? No, the Earth was uninhabitable at this point. It wasn't ready for people to live with God. But when a potter makes a clay it makes a beautiful ceramic thing he grabs, or she grabs a lump of clay and shapes it into that beautiful ceramic pot. Or when a glass maker takes a big molten lava thing and grabs it with the fire the stick that the glass blowers make, and they make that cool, big glass thing that they're making. They start with a raw piece of material, and then they form it. They make it into something. And that's what God is doing here. He didn't find an earth that was without form and void and darkness and deep of ocean and just, oh, wonder what I'll do something with this. He didn't find it laying around. God created it like this. He created it in the very beginning, and then he's going to make it into something beautiful and perfect. Can imagine the angels who God had already created watching And God's like, Look at this. Look what we're going to do here. Look, check it out. What is it going to be us? Now, the readers reading what God gave Moses, the Israelites when they were hearing about this encounter us. Now, there should be anticipation. What is God going to make out of this earth that's without form and void that's got darkness covering it? This word wasteland, the without form. Word wasteland is something that's not fruitful or productive. It's used in Isaiah 3411 and Jeremiah 423, to talk about what happens to people who reject God. In isaiah 41 and 44 it talks about the idols. And idol makers are a wasteland. They don't have anything. They don't can't give anything. Like if I think I'm going to eat this microphone and it's going to give me nutrients, I'm not I'm not thinking straight. That's that's a wasteland. If I'm trying to project noise, that's great noise. So that's the wrong word. Sound, beautiful sound. If I'm trying to project this is going to be great. But if I want to eat and nourish my body, that is not going to be productive for me, it's a it's a wasteland, and that's what the earth was. It wasn't productive. It didn't it wasn't able to give life. It wasn't hospitable yet. But that's not the end of the story. We see in the second part of verse two, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The Spirit, the breath of God, the Holy Spirit, was hovering there, over the darkness. He was ruling over it in the very beginning. When it's ready, it's pregnant with expectation. What's going to happen here? God, the Spirit is there, ready to form, to fill, ready to create, ready to give it life, ready to make it beautiful. This word, hovering over is like a mother hen hovering over her chicks. She's hovering over them, protecting them. If you try to mess with those chicks, she's going to get you. She's going to feed them and take care of them. Or like an eagle, an eagle hovering over its young right there to provide, to protect. The Holy Spirit is over the earth ready to provide, to fill, to create, to make it have life turn over to Deuteronomy, 32 the fifth book of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 32 verses eight through 12. We see the same word hovering, used in a different way. Just like the Holy Spirit was hovering, we see this word here used Deuteronomy, 32 verses eight through 12. It
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says, When the Most High gave the nations, gave to the nations their inheritance. When he divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. So God divided up the nations. Genesis, 11. We'll get to that. But the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is allotted heritage. He chose Israel to be His people. Look at verse 10. He found him, Jacob in a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness, he encircled him and he cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. That word desert land is just like the word in Genesis, one, two, without form. He found him in a wasteland. He found Israel in this wilderness where there was no there was no 711, there was no snack machine. It was a wilderness. There was nothing there to give them life. And look at verse 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings and catching them, bearing them on its pinions. The Lord alone guided him. No foreign God was with him, like an eagle that stirs up its nest. Imagine the eagle, powerful, fluttering over its nest, caring for it. That's the same word there in Deuteronomy, 32 that we see in Genesis. One two, the Holy Spirit was there to care for just like God cared for his people, Israel in the wilderness. He gave them water. He gave them manna from heaven. He protected them from their enemies. He led them by a pillar of fire by night and by cloud by day. He was with them, caring for them. God, the Spirit is here with the creation, caring hovering over the creation to make it what it needs to be, to give it form and fill it. Listen to Psalm 104 30, a beautiful psalm that praises God for His creation. Says, When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. God sends out His Spirit and creates and renews the ground and creates what He wants to create. Listen to job. 33, four. I'll leave you talking to job. He says, The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Holy Spirit creates life from what was a wasteland and emptiness. God's Spirit gives life and beauty and creates according to the will of God. He is the Creator, the ruler, Lord, carrying over the creation. We see here a hint of the Trinity in Genesis, one, one and two. We see here the Spirit working at creating. And we see other places like job and Psalm 104 talking about the spirit being the creator. And we see God being the creator in verse one, right. Listen to Deuteronomy. 32 verse six, we see that God the Father is your creating. Says, Do you thus repay the Lord? You foolish and senseless people. Is not he your father who created you, Who made you and established you. You see, God is a father. He is a father. And how he creates. Listen to First Corinthians, 86 yet for us, there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. From God, the Father is all things and all exist. He is the One who created. God is father. He loves as the Father does, and look at how he's provided. Read Genesis one. He's taking care of his kids. This is better than giving them an education and car and car insurance and a house and helping them find a spouse. This is God creating, making everything. I mean, he does all those things. He makes a house, he brings a spouse, right? He does all those things. But what an amazing job of being a father. God does here in Genesis one, and then we see the third person, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. Right? We see the son in verse three, Genesis one, three says, And God said, Let there be light. God spoke, what do we see in the New Testament about God's speech? The word of God, God speaking is Jesus? Right? That's Jesus when God's speaking. That's Jesus creating. Look at John one, verses one through three. John one, verses one through three. We see that Jesus is there in John in Genesis, one three. Genesis one three, interpreted through John one, one through three helps us see that Jesus is the word John one. Verse one says, In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things were made through Him and without Him. Was not anything made that was made. How many things were made through Jesus? All did God create Jesus? And then Jesus created No. All things that exist, that were created, were created through Jesus. By Jesus, he creates everything. Jesus is eternal. With God, the. Father and God, the Spirit. He always has existed for all of eternity in the past. He's always been there, and he was the word coming out of the father, who, as he speaks and creates Colossians. One says the same thing. Colossians, 116 says, For by Him, by Christ, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him, and all in the Greek means all. It's all things he made. Everything. There's not anything that Jesus didn't make. He is the Creator. So we worship God the Father, who's the Creator? We worship God the Spirit, who's the Creator? We worship Jesus, God the Son, who's the Creator. Hebrews one two. Says the same thing. In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed, the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. Jesus created the world. So God is one God, three persons, Father, Son, Spirit. The father is the Creator. The Son is the creator, the spirit is the Creator. But there's one Creator, one God, right? It's a mystery, but we see it clearly in Scripture. We see that there is one God, three persons, and we worship Him and praise Him who is a relational, gracious, loving God, Father, Son and Spirit. Go back to Genesis. One two, what do we learn about God and how He works from Genesis? One two, we see a pattern. God starts with a wasteland and emptiness. He starts with darkness and the deeps, and he gives life. And we see the same thing over and over. Sarah Abraham's wife was barren. God gives life to her. The Israelites are in the wilderness, in the barrenness, in the wasteland, and God brings them into a fruitful land with every aspect of salvation. God is giving us life where there's no life before God is doing the impossible. He is bringing into being What does not exist before. That is what our faith is in, is that God does the impossible. He is the author of life, the Creator. There's so many ways that our lives this is more of a secondary application, but our lives can become a wasteland, a barren place, an emptiness, and God is able to buy his Spirit to fill us, as we trust in Christ, to make life come where there is no life to bring healing and forgiveness, to bring change and transformation, he can create what he wants, what's beautiful and glorious and good for his people. On the other side, though, not only should we trust God who gives life, but it shows us that we can't trust in the earth. The people that Moses was ministering to, the Israelites. They lived in a world where everyone was worshiping the sun, the moon, the stars, the tree, the cow, the dog, the themselves, they were worshiping the creation. And that's what Romans one says we all do, even though we see that there's a God we worship and serve His creation instead of him. That's our natural tendency as sin, sinners, and in America, it's through humanism, right? Materialism, we worship ourselves. What we feel, what we want, is the ultimate thing. This is showing us. You can't trust the creation. The creation by itself is not, is not life giving this earth is formless and void. It needs the earth needs God to give life to it. And so we can't trust in Mother Earth, Mother Nature. We can't trust in ourselves. We can't trust in the created things. They are dependent on God. We see that all throughout the Old Testament, in Jeremiah 423,
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we see that when God's people reject Him, He makes them in the land without form and void. The same exact phrase that we see in Genesis, one, two. Listen to Jeremiah 423, I looked on the earth, and behold it was without form and void into the heavens. They had no light. He's talking to the Jews, to Judah, saying, You're being foolish. You're rejecting me, and now you're going to become wasteland and emptiness without form and void because of your rejecting of God. It's great to take care of the earth, right? We shouldn't avoid pollution. We should conserve the water there's good to be mindful of being a good steward of God's earth. But the worst thing you can do for the earth is reject God. When we reject God and bring upon the earth His wrath, like we're going to see in Revelation six through 20, that's way worse than whatever we can do through pollution. I'm not saying that to minimize, cutting down on pollution and conserving things and being a good steward, because we should do that. But the worst thing that humanity does is not polluting the environment, it's rejecting God. Because when we reject God, he turns the earth back into emptiness and wasteland. He turns it back into without form and void. He destroys there's no life without the author of life. There's no fruitfulness without God. There's no peace without the Prince of Peace. The only way to flourish and thrive on God's good earth that he's created for us is through trusting in God. Imagine that you're a parent and you have a child, and this child has a father mother, right? You're their child, and you've given them a wonderful childhood you provided for them, and now they're an adult, and they reject you. They kick you out of your house and send you to live in the gutter. They don't want anything to do with you, but they're just enjoying your house. They're enjoying the benefits of the education you gave them. They're enjoying the food that you've stocked the kitchen with. They're enjoying kitchen with. They're enjoying the car that you purchased. They're enjoying all your stuff, but they've kicked you out into the gutter. Is that right? Should that be what people do? But that's what we do with God. God creates the earth. He creates us in His image. He gives us all this stuff, and we reject Him. And what do we expect when we reject God? We kick God out. Out of our lives, then it's not going to be good. There's going to be no life, no joy, no ultimate true love and happiness. It's going to go away because we don't have God. We have to have a right relationship with God. And Jesus comes to that Earth that we try to kick God out of. We couldn't, obviously, but he comes to earth and he lives among us, and he dies in our place. He absorbs that full wrath of God that we deserved, and then he rose again so that he could bring us back to God. We could come back into God's family and be God's children forever. If we reject God, we're gonna have death. If we trust God, if we submit to God through Jesus Christ and trust in Him, we're gonna enjoy His goodness and greatness now through the Spirit living with us, through the relationships we have in the church and ultimately in the new heavens and new earth. That's our ultimate confidence. Is that when Christ returns the new creation, that Christ makes new hearts for all of us, we see Jesus and we become like Him as He is. That's gonna be an amazing transformation. When Jesus comes back and you see him face to face, and you are perfectly transformed. You always love the way he loves you, always think the way he thinks. You can live on the earth in your resurrected, glorified body, and always serve him perfectly and love others perfectly, and he's going to make the earth perfect. There will be no more corruption, no more selfishness and fighting and all the brokenness and sin and curse that is our ultimate hope is that God is a good creator, and he's going to bring about a new creation through Jesus' return, where all of us who know Jesus are going to live with him. That is our hope. So look to God, the Creator, the Father, the Spirit, the son. Trust Him. He is caring for ruling over in your life right now. Think about your situations you're facing. The Holy Spirit is like a mother Eagle hovering over your life. If you know Jesus, he's there with you. He wants to fill you. He wants to help you to trust what God's word says is true about you. He wants you to trust in Christ. He wants to bring life and glory to God through your life. Let's pray and thank him right now, God, we thank you for your goodness and kindness and greatness. There's no one like you. We worship You. We serve you. God. Help us to remember that you are great and you are good. When we think about in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, may we bow and worship? May we thank you? May we remember that the creation you've given us is not the ultimate thing you are, the ultimate one We worship you help us to grow in our worship of you through Christ amen.
Nathan Thiry is the Growth Groups & Outreach Pastor at Faith Bible Church. He enjoys biking and outdoor activities, and has a passion to see the gospel spread throughout our community and the whole world!
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