Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Father God, we thank you that you have inspired scripture for our benefit, to teach us and to train us in righteousness. And so we pray this morning that as we hear your word, we would be taught and trained for righteousness. In Jesus name, Amen. Well, I don't know how you feel when you heard that chapter read. You know, whether you know the chapter really well inside and out, whether you've maybe just heard it for the first time, maybe ideas of, you know, where do the dinosaurs fit in?

I don't know, whatever questions might come to your mind. There could be all sorts of questions. It once happened that there was a course in a German university and the professor said, we want to teach the Bible exhaustively. So we will begin at Genesis chapter one, verse one, and we will think of everything that there is to say about it that we can think of and we'll continue through. Well, by the end of the year they had got to Genesis chapter one, verse seven, and there the theological training ended.

I suppose there's a lot that could be said, of course, and if you do know this chapter well, you're probably aware that there are debates about it. Maybe you're not. If you're not familiar with the discussions. There's a lot of debate surrounding how long is a day did God create in seven periods of 24 hours? Or could the days mean something longer?

A lot of ink is spilt on this question and it's a question that's gone on for a very, very long time. Back in the 5th century, a guy called Augustine, who was an African bishop, wrote a book called the City of God. And in that book he said, of course God didn't make it the world in seven 24 hour periods. Why would it take him so long? You know, of course he didn't.

So this question has been on people's minds for a long time. And I raise this very disappointingly to say we're not going to talk about it. But it's important to mention it, I think, because for two reasons. First of all, it's not really what this chapter is about. The main reason that God inspired this chapter for us is not so that we can debate whether it was seven periods of 24 hours.

I'm not saying it wasn't. I just don't think that's the main point. And the second reason to raise it is that we, many of us will meet in connect groups later in the week or in the coming weeks. And there's a possibility that we have strong feelings on this and that there could be division caused between us. And I just want us to say that would be a mistake.

This shouldn't be something we divide over. Admit talk about it, that's wonderful, but let's not be divided over it. It's not a line in the sand for us here at All Saints. And I don't think it should be coming between any of us. So that's why I mention it now.

So what is this chapter really all about? Well, we've already said there could be so much to say, but I want to divide this chapter up according to three verbs. Three verbs. They're all the same verb. And it's the verb created.

Created. We have it in verse one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We have it in verse 21. So God created the great creatures, etc.

And we have it in verse 27. God created mankind in his own image. What we don't get from English is that this is a very particular verb of creating. In Hebrew. It's a word bara, and, and it's only ever used of God.

God is the only subject of this verb. He is the only one that ever does creating in this sense. No one ever else has this verb. So it's a very special word. We're talking about things that God only does.

Only God does. Well, within these three created. We will explore this passage. The first thing that we see is the first created verse one. And here we see that God alone created.

Look with me at verse one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's not an accident that the first subject of the Bible is God. He's the one it's all about. He's just there right from the beginning, isn't he?

In the beginning, God. And this is an important point for Genesis, chapter one, Genesis was written by Moses. You may know who Moses is. He is the guy who saved Israel out of Egypt, isn't he? Who led God's people out into the wilderness.

You may also remember that Moses was raised in the Egyptian court, so he had the best education that the 14th century or whenever he lived could have offered. He knew his hieroglyphics back to front. He'd be able to chat in Babylonian, all of this cool stuff. Moses knew it all. But just think for a second.

He wrote Genesis after he had come out of Egypt, but he never made it to the promised land. And so as he penned these words, he was writing them to God's people in the wilderness generation. You know, God's people who had a lot before them, people for whom there were all sorts of other powers around. But he wanted to say to them, in this desert moment, with these impossibilities, apparent impossibilities in front of you, it is your God that made the heavens and the earth. All of that, he says, is, in the beginning.

God created the heavens and the earth. Well, in the second verse, let's move. Move on. Now. The earth was formless and empty.

Darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And so we have a God in the heavens, far above the heavens, creating the earth. And now we see that the Spirit of God is present with his creation. You see that the Spirit of God there, the Spirit of God is said to be hovering over the waters. This language of hovering is used of a bird.

It's kind of like bird language, like an eagle fluttering over its nest, protecting its young. It's a nurturing verb. You might think of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters at Jesus baptism in bringing forth new life. So we've got the God in heaven commanding things. We've got the Spirit of God present in his creation.

And then verse three, God said, let there be light. And there was light. So finally we have creation by a word. God, simply speaking. Well, we know from the rest of the New Testament that this word that was spoken was in fact God's son, Jesus.

Think of John, chapter one. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What word is that? This word spoken in Genesis 1, as we think in Colossians chapter one, where we're told that all things are created through Jesus and for him. So we know this word that's spoken is God's son bringing forth creation.

So in the first three verses of Genesis, we've got our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he alone is the one that creates. We're not talking about a random God, sort of some sort of vague divinity. We're talking about our God, our specific God, who is Father, Son and holy Spirit, and he created all by himself. That might seem really obvious, but it's a really major point of this, of this verse that he created absolutely by himself. We've already said that Moses knew all the Egyptian and Babylonian literature, and he would know that in all their stories, the world was created through battles between the gods.

There were fights going on amongst the gods, and different stories have different ways, but essentially there's always a battle that starts the world off. What Moses wants us to know is that it wasn't like that God wanted to create. And he very calmly spoke, just brought it forth. We see this very clearly in a lovely little detail I think you'll find in verse 16. Look with me in verse 16.

See if you can find. Think of something that might be unusual about the way this is phrased. God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. Did anything strike you as unusual there?

Have you ever gone out at night looking at a full moon and said, come on, darling, look at this bright, lesser light?

It's not what you do, is it? You don't refer to the sun and the moon as, oh, look, the greater light is out in full force this morning. Well, we don't say that, do we? So we think, okay, Moses, have you forgotten how to say sun and moon? No, no, he hasn't forgotten how to say sun and moon.

He knows full well. He doesn't use those words, though, because he knows that the sun, Shemesh, is a God in those cultures. And he doesn't want any hint that there's another divinity standing next to him, because there isn't. He's by himself. So let's pull the rug from under that.

There's no God next to me. Let's go with greater light. No one worships the greater light, but they do maybe worship God. So this chapter is stressing that God did creation by himself.

Now, why does any of this matter to us? This is of way more importance than just interest. It's important because what this teaches us is that the basic truth about reality, underneath all things, is God. And not just any God, but the God who is love, the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the basic fact of the universe.

From everything, whatever else might happen in the world, the basic, most important, fundamental truth is that our God who is love, is there. Now, we might not believe in the mythologies of Egypt and Babylon, but we have our own mythology, don't we, of how the world came to be? The reigning story goes something like this. Some sort of chaos came about, maybe in some sort of big bang or something like this. And out of this chaos, forces fought each other and life struggled forwards.

As the weak ones were put aside, the strong ones rose up. The mighty prevailed, as they were the more evolved and they. They lorded it over the others. They won out, whilst the weak were put to aside. But there will come a time when everything will go back down.

Everything will die again in the cold Death of the universe. That's the mythology that tends to go around in our world, I think you'll agree. It's a very depressing way to see the world, isn't it? That there's a struggle for existence that results in maybe one or two peaks of joy and then it dies off into the death of the universe. Genesis teaches us that the basic truth is that there is a God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that love is the basis of all things, that sin is going to come in in chapter three of Genesis.

That's true, there's going to be a dip, but it comes back up because Christ raises us back. So the story of the Bible is a wonderful one to encourage us that at base, at the bottom of all things, all is well. That's the first thing and the longest thing, if you're counting time. Secondly, let's look at our second created. Verse 21.

God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind, and God saw that it was good. I want to focus here on that final phrase that as we think about God's creation and how he filled the world, we ask, what was it like? Well, follow me with this in your Bibles. Verse four, it's not the right verse. Go to verse ten.

God called the dry land and he and the gathered waters, he called sea and saw that it was good. Verse 12 the Lamb produced vegetation and at the end God saw that it was good. Verse 18 he made the lights in the sky and God saw that it was good. Verse 21 God created the creatures, etc. At the end God saw that it was good.

Verse 25 God made the wild animals, etc. God saw that it was good. Verse 31 God saw all that he had made and it was very good.

It's wonderful, isn't it, when the Lord just hammers home what we're supposed to be learning from all of this. It's very clear, isn't it? What was God's creation like? Good. He made it good.

He made things as he wanted them. Creation is good. It is well ordered. It is how he wanted it. God didn't have any beta testing.

You know in software when you put something out, you make something and you give a beta test to see if you can find all the bugs to fix. This isn't what creation was like. God didn't say, well, we'll meet in a month and we'll see how it's going, and I'll start fixing those issues. Okay? Doesn't work like that.

And then we'll get Earth 2.0 once we've worked through all of these things. No, no. God made the creation good in the first place. He made it right. It's wonderful.

He made things have their place and their order. The animals and plants and things were made according to their kind. There is an order in creation. Everything has its place, and it is a good place. Well, this teaches us to live satisfied in how God has made us.

I don't know if you've ever daydreamed about being a superhero. You might just be having a little image into my psyche here. Now is your chance. If you've never done so, what would you like for your superhero power? Give me a second to think about that.

Does anything come to mind? How about flying? That would be cool, wouldn't it? Or being able to breathe underwater. That would be good.

This morning I was thinking never getting cold would be quite a good superpower, wouldn't it? Well, sometimes we daydream about. You may not, but you only have to look at lists of films. And superheroes are really popular, aren't they? Why?

Because there's a sense of wanting to transcend being merely human. You know, there's this. It kind of feels exciting, doesn't it, to be more than human? So wouldn't it be good to have wings or to be able to breathe underwater? Well, that sense is in all our hearts, whether it comes out as superheroes or not.

But the truth is that God has made us how he wants us. He's placed us in his creation. He's made us good how he wants us. Being a finite human who has weaknesses, who can't fly is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.

If God would have made us, if he had wanted us to be like that, he would have made us like that.

Well, the last thing is that God created us in his image.

Verse 26. God says, Let us make mankind in our image.

Again, familiar words. But if we pause to think about that, it's interesting, isn't it? Let us. Who's the us? Who's God talking to there?

He's not choosing one of the animals and saying, oh, that horse looks nice, horsey. Let's make people in our image. He's not saying that. We've already seen that in creation. We have to find God.

We got to find God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So it is our God, our trinitarian God, who creates in his image as the Father, speaks to the Son in the Spirit, saying, let's make mankind in our image, so he makes people. And you might be thinking, but we've just talked about creation being good, and we've dealt with that. Why are we talking about people in a different breath? It's because, of course, as human beings, we are God's creatures.

We are people that he made. But in another sense, we're very different to the rest of creation. The rest of creation was brought forth. You might think about this in verse 24. Look at this.

God says, let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds.

I don't know the exact mechanics of what that means for the land to produce creatures, but there is a sense in which God has given the power to the land to sort of shoot up creatures and plants and things, whatever that might be. It's come through the land. But when it comes to people, God says, I'm actually going to make you directly. I'm going to make you in my image. That's not the case with the rest of creation.

So we're created in this image, this trinitarian image.

In verse 28, we find what this means for us. If you read with me, God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky, and over every living creature that moves on the ground.

Whose job was it to rule and to reign after creating? Whose task would that be? It would be God's task. Right? It's God's task.

That's his job, to rule and to reign, to rule over the earth. But he says, I want you people to do that in my stead. I want you to rule in my place. I want you to be my vice regents.

He doesn't say this to any other animal. He doesn't say this to any part of creation except mankind. Because we're made in his image and we're delegated with his authority in some sense as well.

So as God's vice regents, we have his stamp on us, the stamp of the king. This is an indelible mark on every single person that God has made them in his image. Now, you might be thinking, but doesn't sin mar this image? How does sin work? Well, sin does mar the image, but it never effaces it.

It never gets rid of it. You imagine a 50p that has got the face of the king on. Now, as long as the image of the King is imprinted on that coin. It's worth 50 pence, isn't it? Now, that 50p could become very, very dirty.

It could become scratched, corroded, anything could happen to it.

But it's just as valuable when it's in that dirty, corroded state, isn't it? As if you've polished it and shined it up because it's still a 50p. Why? Because it's got the image of the king on it.

Well, brothers and sisters, every single one of us is imprinted with the image of the king. And you might today feel like a corroded coin that's scratched or dirty in some way, or an old coin or a new coin, but the value is the same because of the mark of the king. And so being created in God's image is what gives every human life dignity. This is true of every old life, every young life, every in between life. Whether we're an unborn child, whether we're an old person, it doesn't matter.

The image of the king is imprinted on us and that's what gives us our worth. It's not about how clever we are, how many skills we have, how useful we feel. That's not what gives us our dignity, but because we are God's image bearers.

So we've seen that God alone created. We've seen that he created all things good and that he made us in his image. These are three big themes from this chapter. And I want us to take to heart just again thinking about Moses writing these truths. Why would he write these truths to the wilderness generation?

Because he wants to say to them, these things that are ahead of you, that seem impossible, they may well be impossible, but your God is the one who made things come out of nothing.

God is the one who makes things out of nothing. And so we can take our challenges to him in prayer. We can trust him for all things. We can trust him ultimately for our salvation. I mentioned this word bara, this Hebrew word, this creating word in three verses here.

And it occurs somewhere else in scripture that's really important. And I want to leave you with this. In Psalm 51, which is the great psalm of lament, of confession, David prays this create in me a new heart. He uses that word in me a new heart. We said that word is something, a creation that only God can do.

And so we can pray with David this because we know that God could call the whole universe out of nothing and he can call our salvation out of nothing. We think, oh God, I'm not bringing very much for you to work with. But I don't work with anything. I'm the God that works out of nothing. So you come to me and you pray.

Lord, create in me a clean heart. And he does so from nothing. This is our God. Let's pray.

Father God, we thank you for this word to us this morning. Thank you that you have made us in your image. Each and every one of us here today is your image bearer. That our value in your sight is given to us by you and cannot be eradicated. Pray that we would live in that truth today and know that the salvation we can have in Christ is all of your doing out of nothing.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen.