Understanding Everything!

Father, we want to know you. It is in this account that you reveal yourself in all your sovereignty and power. Help us now as we read this to not let our mind wander, but to concentrate and to think and to understand Your Word as it speaks of the beginning. Help us to see Jesus in all of this, we pray, for His glory and Yours, and for our good, in Jesus' name.

Amen. You don't even notice the huge cloud of dust as you tread along that desert path with your family in tow. amidst thousands upon thousands of your people. Your mind just swims with events of the last several weeks. The plagues that swept through the land of Egypt sent by the God of your people. The strange night with that strange feast with blood splashed on the door because your God commanded it.

And the fact that anyone who didn't have that blood on the door lost their firstborn. Leaving the only home you've ever known for as long as you've lived and for generations before you because this God commanded it. That nature-defying walk through the middle of the Red Sea all by the power of this God. Now, you've heard of many gods all through your life.

And this God has been mentioned among your people for some generations and many even among your people worship him. But what kind of a God is he? Who is this God who delivered us from slavery in Egypt, you ask? Who is this God who leads us by cloud and fiery pillar? What kind of a God is he? What is he like and why does he come to our aid?

Those are the questions you have as you make your way through the Sinai Peninsula to a strange land you've never seen because this God has told you to go there There are also the questions you should be asking Who is this God who has delivered us from sin What is He like and how are we related to Him You see, that is why the Bible contains the creation account to answer those questions. Who is this God and what is He like? And in this account, God intends to reveal Himself, his relationship to creation, and his relationship to man in order for his people to know who he is.

He did this to a people steeped in a pagan culture, a culture that explained the world and everything in it through a whole tribe of different gods. He does that today to a people steeped in a culture of naturalism, A culture that explains the world and everything in it solely by natural categories. With a determination to understand the world without any reference to God.

Now, that's why Moses penned this account. So that you would realize that apart from God, you cannot understand anything in this world. he pended for a people who needed to see the world through different eyes. A people who for generation after generation, in fact, who for 400 years... Now you think about that for a moment. Our country has barely been in existence for that long, if you count all the very early colonization of our country.

They had lived in Egypt for 400 years. That's the only thing they knew. they lived in a culture steeped with different gods with a world explained by those gods and so this account comes to god's people in order for them to understand our god ourselves and our world that's what this account is about so you follow as i read this very familiar passage from Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. 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. 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, and which 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, and 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, And it was so. And God made the two great lights. The greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.

To rule over 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 water 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, And 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 God said let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds And it was so And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth and God said behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth everything that has the breath of life I've given every green plant for food and it was so and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the hosts of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done.

And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Now remember that stories, narrative communicates truth. We learn from stories. Cinderella, what do we learn from that story. We learn from that story, don't lose hope.

You can start out in the ashes and end up in the palace, right? These stories communicate truth to us, and God intends this narrative to teach you that apart from God, you will never understand your world. I believe that's what he intended for his people as they trudged along the way to the new land. That's what he intends for us, them living in a pagan culture, us living in a culture that is awash in naturalism.

You cannot understand this world apart from God. So let's explore that in this account. First of all, God explains himself to you. There is but one God. There is no other. That is obviously clear.

In the beginning, God. Not gods, not many. One God. No rivals. Living in a culture whose stories and theology spoke of many gods, often in conflict with each other, this God claims that He alone is God. There are no others.

None others exist. And in opposition to our culture of naturalism, that says, I will only believe what can be confirmed by my senses. If you can do the experiment repeatedly and get the same results, it's the only thing I'm going to believe, God says, in the beginning, God. Nothing else. And that he created all. He is a personal God.

The universe is not the result of impersonal forces. It is a result of the creative activity of a living, personal God. Alright? There is but one personal God who is the creator. He creates by merely speaking things into existence. As I read this passage over and over and over again, I was amazed at the repeated phrase.

And God said, and it was so. Right? All the way through. And God said, and it was so. All the way through there. And every day you can see that.

All the world around us was created by one God. Everything that we see was created by God. Because there is only one God who is the creator. He is the sovereign. that is, He alone rules in the universe. Or to put it another way, everything is subject to Him. Now I believe that's the main point.

If I were to say, what is the biggest main blasting truth from this chapter, it is this. God alone rules. Now why do I say that? Well, in the pagan stories, that these people grew up with, no sovereign exists. Because individual deities may be at odds with one another and thus they thwart each other plans All of us have had some kind of exposure to mythology in our literature classes right You got Zeus and Mars and all these other gods and all these lesser gods are constantly fighting.

If you read the Iliad, right? You remember the Trojans and the Greeks are fighting, and the gods are fighting above them, and you've got Athenia and Mars and they're in competition and they're moving their human counterparts around. In this narrative, Israel's God has no rival. There is no one to thwart Him. There is no other God. He alone rules.

He is sovereign. You will note that in those days, those people had heard these stories of the world erupting, the world erupting from the battles of the gods. For example, Marduk in the land of Babylonia. Marduk fights Tiamat or chaos. See, there's chaos at the beginning of this in those mythologies. Marduk fights Tiamat, who's chaos, and out of this battle comes the world.

They're going to a land that worships Baal, and Baal is in conflict with the sea. again it sounds kind of like this except that you got these two gods fighting and out of that comes the world but god fights no one because they don't exist he speaks and it appears it's created he is sovereign notice this now you might not have noticed this but notice this recurring phrase and God called. What's that all about? God is naming everything.

He names everything. That is a sign of sovereignty. Here you are in the hospital. You've got a brand new son. And you're standing at the nursery window and you're looking at crib number three. That's where your boy is.

And you're just looking at him and you think he's the nicest looking kid in there. And all of a sudden this official looking guy walks up to the window with a clipboard. he looks in there and he goes okay crib number one I'll call him Adrian and he writes it down crib number two I call her Emily and he writes it down crib number three I call him You go wait a minute what are you doing Right You don have any right to name those children in there Right? Would you agree with me?

Would you not get upset if someone was standing there naming your kid? Well, see, in that culture, naming means sovereignty, means rule. Right? Means authority. So you see, as you go through here, God names everything, right? He calls the light.

He names the light. He names the darkness. He names everything. That's important for you to see. God is sovereign. You find no dualism in the universe.

This text is telling us there is no equal good and equal evil. There is no Satan who's equal with God. There is no deity who is evil that's equal with God. There is no yin and yang, right? There's none of that. There is one God.

Not even evil can thwart Him. Not even man can thwart Him. He alone is sovereign. He creates everything by His Word. And it is the Word of this personal, living, sovereign God that calls people into existence. It calls the nation of Israel into existence when at Mount Sinai, God delivers His Word and a nation is created.

By the way, this Word has created us. This Word is found in Jesus. This Word is Jesus. And do you notice what it says in John 1? In the beginning was the Word and 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. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. Notice, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is not overcome. That should remind us of what? There's darkness in the beginning and God separates it and there's light and darkness. We're going through this whole creation process. the true light which gives light to everyone who is coming into the world.

And all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God That same creative power that formed the universe is the same creative power that comes to us in Jesus and creates the people of God. The God who called you is the sovereign of the universe. God explains his creation to you in this account.

What do we learn about creation? We learned this, creation exists by the plan and purpose of God, not by impersonal forces working randomly in a random universe. Creation exists by the plan and purpose of God, not by random impersonal forces. Now watch how the creation narrative unfolds. Watch this. When the earth was created, it was what?

Without form and void. That is, it was uninhabited and empty. Or it was uninhabitable and empty. It was without form. And it was void. And God's Spirit, notice, hovers over the waters.

Now that's meant to tell us something. God does not struggle against other gods. He does not struggle against chaos and all the mythologies that surround this people. But instead, he has intimate contact with his creation. And neither is God standing aloof, letting natural forces just have their way and taking their course. Nature, even at its beginning, submits to God's creative activity.

In the whole process of creation, God forms and then he fills. Watch what happens here. What happens in day one? there's light and day. Okay? Light and darkness. Day two, sea and sky.

Day three, a fertile earth. Now watch what happens. Day one is light and darkness. God, what? He forms it. And then he fills it.

What happens on day four? Sun, moon, and stars. you see that day two he forms it sea and sky day five what creatures of the water water, and creatures of the air. Do you see that? He forms it on day two. He fills it on day five. Day three, a fertile earth.

He forms a fertile earth. Day six, what happens there? The creatures of the land are created. He forms and he fills. Do you see that? So it starts out uninhabitable and empty.

God forms it, first three days, he fills it the next three days. You've got to see that. He forms and he fills. So, creation comes about by God's plan and purpose. You can't help but see his plan and purpose there. Here's what else God tells us in this narrative.

You must not worship creation. You must not worship creation. Notice verses 9 through 13 on the third day. God separates the land and the ocean, and what does he do? He empowers the earth to produce. He empowers the earth to produce.

Now why is that important? He makes the earth fertile and, if you will, self-perpetuating. Why? What was the God, as you read the rest of the Old Testament, what was the God that Israel was always tempted to worship? What was his name? Do you remember?

Baal. What is Baal? A fertility God. And God is telling them here, you don't have to go through these annual rituals to make the earth fertile. I have made the earth fertile. You do not have to go to these horrible, degrading kinds of annual rites in order to make the earth fertile.

I have made it fertile. Your God has made it fertile. God essentially says, I made the earth fertile. You need to trust me. You don't go through those annual rites. Notice on the fourth day.

What does God do there? He creates the sun, the moon, and the stars. Now, what do pagan cultures do? They worship the sun, the moon, and the stars, do they not? In fact people today worship them They look up in the paper to see what What the astrological signs are Why Because the planets are what The planets determine your destiny. God says, no they don't.

I created them. They serve you. They mark seasons. That's all they do. They rule the day and the night and that's all. They don't rule you.

Look at on the fifth day. God forms the creatures of the sea and air. Have you ever wondered why on the fifth day, look at verse 20, or verse 21, so God created the great sea creatures and never-leaving creature that moves, with which the waters form. Why does he talk about the great sea creatures? Why does he single them out? You know why?

Because in the Canaanites of Moses' day, those were the powers of the sea of chaos who were in battle with Baal. These great sea creatures, they were the gods of that great chaotic ocean. And here God is saying, I created them. They do what I tell them to do. Don't worship them. Don't worship them.

I just find it fascinating that that is singled out, isn't it, in that day? So God created them. So even though you don't worship creation, creation has God's fingerprints all over it. You know what I find today in our naturalistic culture? There is a near worship of nature in our naturalistic culture today. You know, that's it.

That's all there is. There's nothing more. There's nothing supernatural. And so there is just this incredible devotion to what is. In this, you have to recognize the essential distinction between God and all that's created. God is not nature, and nature is not God.

God transcends nature. The universe is not self-existence. It has a beginning. What are we told in our culture today? Matter always existed. This tells us just the opposite.

There is a beginning to all that is not God. There is a creation. And the last thing I think is very important for us, the universe has purpose. The universe has purpose It is not this impersonal collection of atoms that are just moving according to so impersonal natural laws in an impersonal way Do you ever notice how much despair there is in our culture today?

I have noticed recently how many suicides I've heard about. It's unbelievable how many suicides just in the last few weeks. Why is that? Why is that? Because if you take God out, you are left with an impersonal universe that is meaningless. Right?

You end up in despair. This tells us just the opposite. Do you see what happens? Do you notice that God assigns meaning, value, and place to everything in the universe? See, we don't create meaning. God's already assigned it.

Alright? He's assigned meaning. I will, here's the light, here's the dark. I will call this light, I call that darkness. Right? He names, he calls, he interprets, if you will.

God, and God assigns value. Let no Christian ever say, that creation is bad. God calls it good. By the way, and I don't want to get into any politics here, and I want to be careful what I say, but Christians, there's no place, if this is true what we read here, there's no place for us saying we can exploit and use and just abuse the world around us. We have dominion over it.

We can do whatever we want with it. No, we cannot. No, we cannot. That is the perverted, sinful man that says that. Christians, truly, if God calls it good, then we need to treat it that way, don't we? Now, how that fleshes out, we can talk about that some other time.

But let's not. Let's see that God calls it good. And for you to call anything that God made bad or to abuse it is wrong. Notice here that God explains man to you. This narrative tells of man's creation. It gives us the truth for understanding man Psychology sociology philosophy science all say this to us today Listen isn this what they say?

Now, let's have a scientific understanding of man. Let's be neutral. Don't introduce God talk here, that's biased. We're going to be neutral. You know what I say to that? You can only understand man in relationship to God.

If you take God out, you're not being neutral. You're being rebellious. That's not neutrality. That's rebellion. It's saying, look, God created everything, but I'm going to understand it without any reference to God. Then you're going to skewer everything.

You won't understand it. Think of this. You can only understand man if you think of man in relationship to God. Is man the product of chance or man the special creation of God? Do you think there's any implications to that? If man is the product of chance, then what?

It's all meaningless. let's be neutral let's not introduce God if you don't introduce God you're going to end up in the wrong place is man the highest form of animal life or man created in the image of God if man is the highest form of animal life then when grandma's suffering let's just kill her right? that's what we do with our dogs but if man is created in the image of God there's a difference isn't there how about this is it man all alone in the universe or man living every moment in the very presence of God? Is that going to make a difference in how you understand man? Certainly it will.

How about this? Is man understood by observation or is man understood by revelation? Aha. Now this is dear to my heart, given my bent towards counseling, towards whatever Christians should be doing, but there's a bent to that, isn't there? because the neutral people out there say, well, we can only understand man by observation. Really? Really?

I say you can only understand man by revelation. What do we find? Man has created an image of God. He's got dignity. I treat him differently than if he's just a problem with two legs on. Do I just observe man and hypothesize as to what makes him do it?

Or can I look at the scripture and say, I know why he did that. He's perverted. He's bent. He's depraved. Oh no, don't introduce God talk now. Okay, he's sick?

No. Notice carefully that God does not leave man in the universe to discover his place, his meaning, or his function. Do you notice that? When it talks about man created them, what does it say? And verse 28, And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit, and you shall have them for food. Man is not left alone in the universe to discover his function or his meaning. God's already assigned that. You're created in my image. Here's what you're supposed to do. Here's even what you're supposed to eat.

You see that? Man is not left alone. Man is entirely dependent on revelation from God to understand his place in this universe. To try to understand your place and your function in this world apart from God is going to end up in the wrong place. What is the very definition of a human being? verses 27 and 28. What is a human being?

The image bearer of God. That's the definition of a human being. The image of God. Image and likeness gives us the idea of a duplicate as one who resembles God. A photograph is an image. A statue of a great man is an image.

Your reflection in the mirror is an image. Now those are poor illustrations because statues don't make moral decisions. There exists a correspondence between you and God. You think. You make moral decisions. You have a will.

You create. You work. You rule. And in fact, as someone pointed out to me recently, just this last week, I never saw this before, The image of God can only be fully comprehended in male and female It not that men are in the image of God and females aren Notice what it says So God created man in his own image In the image of God he created him Male and female, he created them.

The image of God can only be seen in these two sexes complimenting one another. And one of the ways that those two sexes reflect God is they produce life. You ever thought of that? Isn't that amazing? We too produce life. Not in the same way God does.

We reflect that. We reflect His creativity. Hey folks, listen to me. Christians ought to love art. Do you know why? Because we live in a world that is the art that God created.

We ought to love art. We ought to love work. We ought to love those things because that's what God is like and we reflect His image. that's what separates us from the rest of creation do you notice this that when it comes to creating man God said let there be let the earth produce and then he comes to man and what does he say let us create man there's a difference now man is the apex of creation the whole narrative comes to this point God prepares the earth for man There's this difference.

And this is what distinguishes us from the animal. Here's one last thing when it comes to man. Man is both in nature and over nature. It's not just over. We're part of nature. Notice this.

Look at chapter... Like all the other creatures, he comes from the earth. We'll see that in the next chapter. Look at verse 29 and 30. This may be a little disturbing to you, but look at 29 and 30. What does it say?

It says that originally we fed just like the animals did. Everybody was a herbivore. Everybody ate plants. Every creature ate plants. No creature ate another creature. And we didn't eat meat at the beginning.

So we eat the same as the animals. Okay? We have the same blessing that animals do. Multiply and fill. And yet he is over nature in the fact that he receives authority to rule He made in the image of God He has a distinct relationship with God So man is both related to and separate from nature In and over. Not one or the other.

Both. Here's the last thing that God explains to you. Turn to chapter 2. God explains rest to you. The word translated rest, let's read it. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God finished His work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work that He had done. so God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation now the word translated rest means cease more than it does rest it's not a word it's not a word that refers to remedying the exhaustion of a tired week that's not what the word means it can't mean that because why does God get exhausted from a tiring week of work I don't know, I would figure that if you could just say, if I could just say, table, and a table appeared, I don't think I'd be exhausted by the end of the week. And God's not a creature. He's a spirit.

He doesn't get exhausted. So what does it mean? When he talks about God resting, here's what it means. It describes the enjoyment of accomplishment. The celebration of completion. Now, about once or twice in my entire life, I felt that when I've actually taken a project from beginning to end, and I've done it.

Like, well, I was going to say like making the sink work, but I don't think I've ever done that completely. But actually completing something, there's this kind of rest. There's this satisfaction. There's this celebration of completion that comes, okay? it's that's what he's talking about this enjoyment the celebration that's what he's talking about and do you see what missing in this there something missing that missing from all the other days see it there not this mention and there was evening and there was morning the seventh day It not there Why is that Because God rest has not ended God rest has not ended.

He has rested from all of his creation. All right? Now, some say, doesn't God still work? Yes, he does. Jesus says, I've come to do the work that my father assigned me. I've completed the work.

That's the work of salvation. But the work of creation is done and he has ceased from that work. This whole passage, this whole creation narrative is headed to this day. God's rest is a rest in which creation itself is to enjoy and have a share. Here is rest and enjoyment with God. And the question is, will the newly created man enjoy that rest and that enjoyment, that pleasure with God?

Now, all of you already know the whole story. Most of you do. And there may be some who don't. But you know what happens, don't you? Why do we not experience that rest? Why is that not our rest?

Because something has come that has disjointed the universe. and we don't have that sense of completion and enjoyment of God that was intended on that day. That God still enjoys, but we can't quite get it. Why is that? Because sin entered and destroyed the rest man had with God. And yet this promise for rest still stands. And the Bible picks up that theme.

It picks up that theme and says, there's still rest for you. There's still this rest with God. Turn over to Hebrews for a moment. Hebrews chapter 4. You see, that day has not ended. There is still a rest.

There is still that rest out there. Oh, if only we could enjoy it. In Hebrews chapter 4, I'm going to read the first seven verses. Here's what it says. There's more, but let's just get the nubbins of it. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands.

It still stands. You see, the writer of Hebrews says... God offered this rest and He said, I'm going to take my people to this land, and if they obey my covenant, they'll enjoy this rest. And they didn't obey that covenant. Right? And so, there's still the rest, still for God's people.

Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them. What's the good news that He's talking about? The good news of Jesus. the good news of Jesus has come to us just as it did to those people back then but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listen for we who have believed enter that rest as he has said as I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest although his works were finished from the foundations of the world for he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way and God rested on the seventh day from all his works and And again in this passage he said they shall not enter my rest Speaking from a passage in the Psalms Since therefore it remains for some to enter it and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience they didn't believe, again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David, so long afterward, and the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

There's rest. There's rest with God. As these people heard the story of creation and God's rest, They headed to the land where they might find rest, but they didn't achieve it. They didn't believe the good news. They didn't believe the promise of God, and so the rest was denied them. And then they rebelled, and they hardened their hearts, and the rest was denied them.

And yet there's still a rest out there. Don't make the same mistake is what he's saying. Don't make the same mistake. God's rest, this enjoyment of everything, this enjoyment with God, is there in Christ, is what he says. That rest is yours in Christ You believe in Jesus The good news comes and it unites with faith And you enter into that rest Don't make the same mistake of not believing.

But find that rest in Jesus. So here you find the beginning. But it's a beginning that explains everything. It gives us the categories to understand our God, our world, ourselves, and that rest. Let's seek to understand in the way that God tells us to. Father, thank You for Your Word.

We thank You for this account that gives us the categories that we need to understand the world in which we live. Help us Father above all to see that God is sovereign He a powerful sovereign He a personal sovereign He the sovereign who created all things Father, help us to see, have a proper view of the world in which we live. You've given us the categories for understanding the creation in which we live.

You've given us all that we need to understand even ourselves and who we are. and the rest that can be ours. The rest with you in Jesus. Help us now, Father, not to just think of this passage as debate material, but as life-transforming truth. Help us to that end for your glory and the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Work that in us by your Spirit, we pray.

Amen. Thank you.