Hey good morning friends. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm gonna jump on here on the computer make sure everybody's able to join us live give me a second as I send out the text message and make sure that we are going alive almost there Well, good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to a new year. So good to be with you. We're gonna start this year by going through Genesis two Leviticus. I know that sounds odd Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. But as I was working through the plans and trying to think through things, I think that's going to give us the best chance of making sure we stay within a good time slot don't go over and actually do this sustainably through the year. So I know we're not getting through the entire Torah. Sorry about that. But we're going to start in the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter one, and we'll see what the Lord has for us this year. I'm so excited. To be in God's word with you. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into the Lord's word. Let's pray. Father, you are such a gracious God. A new year. Father we don't we didn't deserve last year. And yet you have blessed us with a new opportunity to open Your Word, to think, to meditate, to study and to be changed by your word. God, we pray that you would please bless us this morning. We pray that we would understand your word that you would let it change our hearts Father we pray that Your Holy Spirit would be our teacher and that we would be subjected to you in Jesus's name, Amen. All right, so we got Genesis chapter one, I got my glasses here. Genesis chapter one, and we're going to work our way from verse one through verse chapter two verse seven, and then we'll go through and we'll talk about it as we go. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. So the evening and the morning were day one. Then God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament form the waters which were above the firmament and it was so And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and morning were the second day. Then God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place and let the dry ground appear. And it was so And God called the dry land, earth, and the and the gathered and gathering together of the waters, he called seas, and God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth grass and herb that yield seed and that fruit tree that yield fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth. And it was so And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yield seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit who seed is in it, according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. So the evening in the morning, or the third day, and then God said, Let there be light in the firmament of the heavens, to divide the first day from the night and let them be for signs and seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens, to give light on the earth. And it was so then God made two lights, the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the night. He made the stars also, God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning, were the fourth day. Then God said, Let the waters of bound with the abundance of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth, the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens. So God created great sea creatures and every kind, every living thing that moves with which the waters are bounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird, according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. And God bless them saying Be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters in the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth. So the evening and morning were the fifth day. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts on the earth, each according to its kind, and it was so And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind of cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle 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, then God bless them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, See, I have given you every herb that yield seed which is in it, which is on the face of the all the earth and every tree hoofs fruit yield seeds, to you, it shall be for food, also to every beast of the earth to every bird of the air, and everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life. I have given every green herb for food, and it was so Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. So the evening and the morning, the sixth day, thus the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. And on on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done, and rested on the seventh day, from all His work which He had done. Then God bless the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work, which God created and main This is the history of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant or the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth. And there was no man that till the ground, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. Well, we need to ask ourselves a What is this about be what's the best versus summarizes and see, what are we called to do in response to this one? There are probably very few chapters of the Bible that are more hotly debated than Genesis one and two and so I'm going to try to talk about this and speak about what the text tells us. I'll enter into the debate just a little bit. I don't want to spend our whole time there because there's so much richness for us in this passage, and then we'll get into some applications. Well first, this is the clear story. What is this about God creating the universe, right God creating the heavens and the earth? Hebrews chapter 11, verse three says, By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. So that the things which are seen we're not made of things which are visible, right, we believe that the whole whole universe was created by the word of God. It was God who will this is why the first few verses are so important in the beginning. God is God who is self existent is God who has been in himself before there was any created thing. There was God. All being is contingent on God Himself. And so God was there. He has always been there. Because he is and he was, and he will be. Right and so the God is eternal, and from his will he speaks, and by the power of His Will X ne Hello.
From out of nothing. He speaks and things come into existence. So we see a series of different things happen in these six days of creation. The first three days of creation are really God forming things. And the last three days of creation are really God filling things on day number one he creates the light and the darkness. On day number two, his forms the sea and the sky. On day number three, He forms the land and the plants. So he he forms these things. And then, as we look to the next section, we see in day four, you can even put these in different columns. That's literally what I have drawn out here on my on my notes here in my Bible, in the second column, filling his creation. On day number four, he fills the skies with the sun, the moon and score and the stars. On day number five, he fills the skies with in the seas with fish, and with birds. And then on day number six, he fills the creation with land animals, and with humans and so there's this beautiful symmetry, the first three days he forms things, and the second set of three days, days, four, five and six, he fills things. So it's this beautiful symmetry of God forming and then God filling in at the end of these days. What does he say? He looks on his creation and he sees that it is good. He says us on day 23456 He's these are good things and at the very end of all of his creative works, he says it is Tov mode. Very good. He sees the work of his hands and he declares that his very good well as we work through this, this is where the debate part is going to come in and Michael does spend a ton of time here. I want to give you just talk about the elephant in the room. A few different ways in which people have understood this, the longest, oldest historical way that people have ever understood this is this is how God actually made the universe. Right? These are six days, 24 hour days. This is how even in the Old Testament it was understood. I mean in the book of Exodus, which we're gonna get there in Exodus chapter 20. Why do we celebrate the Sabbath still, because in six days, the Lord created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh day he rested and so the Lord sanctified the Sabbath day and hallowed it and so there's an understanding that these were all days and then on the seventh day, God rested. Well, with the rise of Darwin and different schools, in biology and geology that has been questioned and changed people's interpretation of Genesis chapter one. So I'm going to read a list here of different ways in which people have tried to reconcile these things or or come to some type of understanding one is a de Yom doesn't actually equal a 24 hour period, but it can mean a time period. And that's true. There are times in which the way Yom can be used for an age or an eon. But again, if scripture interpret Scripture, I think it's clear that you'll hear is to be understood as a day. One is that God is progressive creation and that on day number one, God created the light in the dark, but then there was an eon, there was a large multi million billion year time period before day number two happened. While that's that's forcing quite a bit into the text, next is a literary framework idea that this is not actually literal history, but this is literary creation. They see the symmetry between days, one and three and days four, five and six. And, and they want to say, see, there's this literary parallel. And so we can we can see that this is really just writing and it's not that it's real history. My issue with that is, Well, God is also a God of order a lot of chaos. And so he forms things and he fills things. And so it makes total sense that instead of seeing as a literary creation, that it's actually God's creation. And next is revelatory days that God didn't actually create on these days but on day number one, he showed Moses that it was he revealed to him that he made the heavens in the earth and then the next day he revealed to him that he made you know the sky and the seas and then the next day he revealed to him that he made the land I don't see much support for that in the text. If you just read through it. I don't think first grader reading Genesis one would ever get that from the text because it's not there. Next is analogical. Right? This is just a this is an analogy, right? It's saying that Genesis, Exodus chapter 20, is actually being cast back and it's giving justification by creating the in Genesis chapter one, meaning that there's a human work week, a seven day work week, six days of work one day of rest, and so they needed to find write up an analogy for this so they come so that the writer created the story of creation as an analogy for six in one, the seven day pattern. Again, quite a bit of speculation in that and not supported anywhere in church history. And the last is a religious polemic. And this is saying, the Bible is a book of its time, and it's in Ancient Near Eastern cosmology. And it's not actually somehow a book that's, that's scientific or anything like that. It's just like the Babylonians or the Greeks or the Romans. And there are different cosmologies for how the world was made. Well, one of the big things that comes into this is this idea of who is the authority and do we subject ourselves to the Scriptures? Right now, I'm going to be honest with you, I hold to a 24 hour, literal 24 hour six day creation view. But one of my favorite people ever an elder at the church I was a member of who was a physicist. I mean, this guy was crazy, smart, MIT, Carnegie Mellon physicist. I love talking to him and he was the one that explained to me, this beautiful concept of, of the appearance of age that on the first day when the God when God made light and dark, and then when he made trees, he didn't make some new he made them with all the appearance of age. So when he made Adam on the sixth day, he didn't make Adam, an embryo. He didn't make Adam of newborn child he made Adam a full grown male and if you had buried if he had been alive for one day, and then he had died and you had gone and examined his bones, you would think oh, this man lived for 30 years. Or whatever it would see. And so when we look into the universe today, and we see that it looks like this is how things were made, is because God is a God of order. So when he made the tree sprout up, they had tree rings in them, even though they were only one day old, they would have had tree rings, or there's a whole series of books you can read if you really want to be nerdy about whether Adam had a belly button, right? Why? Why does that matter? Well, this Adam have an appearance of age as if he was born from someone because I mean the only reason why you have a belly button is if you had an umbilical cord. And I'm of the opinion and this is speculative. I think so. And this is my way of saying you know, I think this is a philosophical understanding that I can understand that in that God is a true teller. He tells us how it actually happened. And we're able to look back but we're also able to see his order. And so I think there's a way to be a literal 60 creationists and understand these words, without throwing out all science. without throwing out, you know, dating methods and all these things, but yet subjecting ourselves to God's word.
And in trying to understand, is this actually how things happened? Because if we throw out these first few chapters of Genesis we'll find ourselves in a heap of trouble. What's called hermeneutically, you know, as we interpret the rest of Scripture, and we if we throw out Genesis one through three as non historical, we're gonna have a real hard time with the rest of the theology of the scriptures. Oh, that's, that's I'm gonna close the book on that debate. And we're gonna get back into what is this about? So God is creation, it is God who created Psalm 33. It is clear that a god created by his word, and so he's made all these things and I want to lean in specifically on a few things here on verse 26. Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the sea. And so we I want to lean in here and realize that God is one. In the beginning, God didn't. This is God who is speaking, and yet in this one God, there is a plurality. There is the Trinity here that we see even in the earliest parts of Genesis. It is God who says, Let us make man in our image. I think this is the father speaking to the Son into the spirit. And so it is a triune act of God to create humanity and then he does something amazing. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle 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 then God bless them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God gives what theologians call the Dominion mandate. God creates man in His own image. He makes him a reasonable soul. He gives him moral attributes that we share with God. And then he tells him, here's the creation. Here's what I have made. Now it's to you to steward it still belongs to God. It is God's creation. It's God who created the world. And yet he hands it over. And he says, Now you steward it, you take dominion of it, you care for it. You take care of the birds of the air, you take care of the cattle on the ground. You multiply use of doing it is God who says to man, you have work to do, buddy, and I'm blessing your work to do. We are the stewards of God's creation. We're given it by God for our benefit, but to bring Him glory. So this is a beautiful picture of God making us in His image and entrusting us with His creation. And he looks on all creation, verse 31, that God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. So the evening in the morning, there was a sixth day, thus the heavens and the earth, and all the hosts in them were finished. And on the seventh day, God ended His work which He had done and rested the seventh day from all His work which He had done, then God bless the seventh day and hallowed it, are sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. We're going to find later time as we get into Deuteronomy, why did God rest because he was going to enjoy his creation. Through God rested on that Sabbath day he hallowed it, he sanctified it, and he thus sets up the pattern in our own lives for six days of work, six days of hard work, and the seven day to rest a seven day to put aside our work and to enjoy God and to enjoy his creation. And then, in verse four, we find an interesting word that's going to become the paradigm in Hebrew for how this book is actually split. Split up this is the history of the heavens and the earth, when they were created in the day that you know, God, the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, the word here for history as a Hebrew word, pull it out. And so it's actually going to be used as the history or the genealogy. And as we go through the book of Genesis, what we're going to find is that we're going to have this total adult in that whole adult another toilet note, and the the book of Genesis is actually broken up that's internal structure or theme is based on these histories. And so this is the history of creation. And I want to also just real quick, Notice, verse seven, And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being. Our life is a blessing from God. He went down as such intimate language it's as if he went to the earth and he formed the the clay of the ground and then he he put his mouth upon his nostrils and breathe. Now I know God does not have a body like men. But somehow, the Lord priests into him the breath of life, and he becomes a living being. Life is a gift from God, a blessing from the Lord. Well, we've gone over a whole lot here in Genesis chapter one, one through Genesis two seven. The question is, what is this about? Well, it's about God's creating the universe. And creating humanity and giving humanity dominion, making a stewards of His creation, and the pattern that he begins to set with the Sabbath. Well, the next question we need to ask is, what's the best verse to summarize this in my Bible, you know, I have a whole bunch of things that they're lying. But I have underlined verse 31. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. You might also underline the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created. But I don't know let me know in your Bible, maybe you would underline Genesis one one. In the beginning God created let me know what would you underline your Bible last seek calling what are we called to do? Well, we are called to believe something here. We're called to believe in the God of creation. The God who has made all things seen and unseen. As we go through the Scriptures, there's no way to avoid it that if God didn't create the universe, if God didn't create the world, then the Psalms don't make sense. Or his job doesn't make sense. If he's not the God of creation, he's not God at all. And so we believe that he's the one who created all things seen and unseen, that every good and perfect gift comes down from the forefather or the is God who, who made us who created us who everything we see is his sovereign domain, that he is the one who sits supreme above at all. That also means a logical outflow of that is, we are His creation, and he's the creator, which means he gets to call the shots and we get to love Him and obey Him and follow Him. We'll find out more as we keep going through. But God created that's something we must believe that God is the one who made us and has made us in relationship to him and so we can listen to him as he is though the sovereign of the universe. Also, I think calling is stewardship. How do you handle the good things that God has given you in your life? Are you taking dominion of what God has given you? Are you loving your family? Are you caring for the fields? Are you making a garden? Are you managing your home? Well? Do you see work as something that you're, I don't want to do this? Or do you see work as a blessing from God? Now he is the one who has this is before sin has ever entered the world. He has given us a work to do not work for work sake, but work to bring Him glory, to love him and and to enjoy the good gifts that he has provided. I think that it's a radical difference in how many of us see work. And as many of us see creation, it's not something for us to use. And abuse. But it's for us to cultivate, to make and to bring God glory with. Let's go ahead and pray. Father, we thank you so much, that we know that you created the heavens and the earth. Lord, we thank you that you have revealed that Yourself to us.
Lord, we thank you for your sovereign dominion, for your power. Lord, we know that you indeed are the one who even made us. You knit us together in our mother's womb. We're fearfully and wonderfully made. Lord, we know this full well. Father, please let us live in light of your creative power. Let us follow after you. Let us love you that God of Creation in Jesus's name, Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you today. May you love the Lord, may You enjoy his creation. May you stand and all of all he shows you both in the book of His Word, and the book of his handiwork. The world and I'll see you next time.
Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai