The Habitat
In Gen 1:3-27 - God begins to build a habitat for his creation – a place and way for it to exist.
When I was a teenager, I was really into aquariums; I liked having this ‘slice of creation’ that I built. I designed and created a little habitat but I soon found out I could spend a lot of time and money on this hobby.
God created by His Word –
“And God said...” The power of God’s word
By God’s Word – things happen. He ‘speaks’ things into existence.
To the ancient Hebrew people the idea of God speaking and things happening was not so foreign.
Ps 33:6 By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Ps 33:9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
God’s words are not empty for the Spirit who was present over the waters empowered God’s word, bringing into being what was spoken
Isa 55:10
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
We have a tendancy to ‘blow people off’ and not pay any attention to what they might say.
There are lots of children who grow up discovering their parents words do not have power, because their parents keep telling & asking them over and over to do the things, the child ignores, the parents threaten and nothing happens – the child discovers they are the ones with the real power and they learn to use it. They blow their parents off – we do that still, to our spouses, bosses, friends, God. We think in our minds words don’t matter – But when God speaks – things are created.
Ex nihilo -
Last week, I briefly mentioned this concept of ‘ex nihio’ that out of nothing God created everything.
There is a story of a group of scientists who perfected their ability to create life forms and so proud of themselves that they went to God to show him their accomplishments – with the intention of being able to say “see, we don’t really need you anymore...”
God says “Great – show me what you can do...”
As they began to explain what they were going to do the took a handful of dirt.
God interrupts and says ... “wait a minute, start with your own dirt!”
Science has made great discoveries, but one thing that has continued to stump scientists is the creation of matter.
No one actually knows how things came to be, because we say “no one was there to record it” however that is not true. Jesus was there and this is what he told one of his closest disciples, John...
John 1:1-5 - memory verse
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
One of the challenges we are going to face is the problem of how to maintain the integrity of the Scripture in light of what is known, or declared, by the world of science.
To understand the text of Genesis we must clarify the distinction between a functional and structural approach.
Function over Form – purpose over structure – why over what
In our world, we believe reality is described most accurately in scientific terms, but in the ancient world reality was described by the stories of the community. To the ancients, the functions of the natural world were consequences of purpose (what and why things are). God brought rain or famine, prosperity or salvery that they experienced.
By contrast our modern scientific approach identifies functions of the natural world as a consequence of structure and how things are put together. Science focuses on the pieces and attempts to understand cause and effect base on natural laws that are linked to structure, (A thunderstorm is explained in terms of atmospheric pressure, temperature and moisture. A dead battery is explained in terms of the law of entropy.)
One of the great questions we feel we have to address when looking at the origins is the matter of days.
“do you really believe that God created the world in 6 days?” is one of the challenges that Genesis gives us to our worldview.
I was in a discussion with a friend a few days ago and when I brought up the subject of origins the first question he brought up was My friend is a Christian, but like all of us, he has been taught, and developed a worldview that doesn’t reconcile science and scripture.
About ‘the day’ ‘yom’ time
There are many ways to understand a ‘day’ It can be a 24 hour period; it can also mean a season “in my day...” or it can mean a very extended period of time “this is the day of man”. Christians have played with the meaning of ‘day’ in an attempt to reconcile scripture to science.
And honestly it is not really science that we are trying to reconcile our beliefs to. It is our friends, our culture, people around us. We are afraid to ‘look different’, to go against someone elses worldview, someone that we want to be like or we want to like us. To often we struggle against the challenge to ‘fit in’
When we look at the language of the text, grammatically the ‘day’ really seems to indicate a 24 hr period and not some extended age.
To the ancient Israelites, the idea of God speaking, things happening and Him making amazing things in a day was not an issue.
Once again, we bring the wrong question to the text. This is a theological document about knowing God. The message Moses wanted recorded was not to answer the question “how could God make this in a day, but WHO is this God and WHY did he do it.
Moses wrote this as the Israelites were preparing to go into the Promised Land, which was already inhabiteted by people of a completely different culture and worldview. Moses wanted them to know and accurately remember WHO the God was that saved them from the Egyptians, brought them through the Red Sea and lead them through the wilderness. It was God who provided them with food and water, It was He that protected them and lead them to His Promised land.
The idea that God created a day was not the challenge, but that the Great “I AM” is not the god of the Cannanites and the worldview they were about to enter into.
Evolution – that says things came into being through millions and millions of years, does not impact my day, the way I live. Evolution does not help me love my wife better or help me be a better employee, Evolution does not help me raise my kids to be godly men and women.
How God does things is up to him, but I am to know that what he does He will call ‘good’.
So, when we look at the creation in Genesis, what are we to learn? What are we to discover about God?
Our faith is about 2 things – REVELATION & RELATIONSHIP and these first 6 days God is revealing much about Himself and beginning to form a relationship.
Creation is about Revelation & Relationship
Day 1 God reveals He is Sovereign.
God creates light and separates light from dark. He called the light ‘day’ and the dark ‘night’. He did not eliminate the darkness that was already present but he clearly set authority over it. He assigns specific roles and restricts influence – sets boundaries to bring order. He makes his first ‘judgement’ on His creation by calling the light ‘good’ - he acknowledged but passed no judgement on darkness but set authority over it and limited it’s influence.
When God declared something as ‘good’ it carries 4 implications:
1. What came in to being functioned precisely as God purposed it
2. It contributed to the well being of the created order
3. Had aesthetic qualities – pleasing & beautiful
4. Had moral force, advancing righteousness on earth (Job 38:12-13)
God creates time – the first function that God will use to bring order – a day, a period of light
Day 2 God reveals himself as the One who Sustains
God separates the waters and creates the atmosphere, Raquia = expanse; God creates weather. The ancients a solid dome over the sky where God held a storehouse of rain, hail, thunder, lightening...all the elements of weather. In an agrarian society, rain sustained them and came from God. Without rain the crops died, which meant people starved. God is going to maintain & sustain what He is about to create – there is forethought to the order He is bringing
Day 3 God reveals Himself as the Provider
God separates water from dry ground and creates vegetation. The dry ground he calls “land” and the waters he calls “seas”. Seas were considered overwhelming foes to be mitigated and the home of frightful sea monsters. By naming the waters “seas” he settles his dominance over remaining chaos and calls it “good”
God commands the land to produce vegetation – seed bearing plants and trees, that bear fruit with seed in it. God bestows on the land a generative power to produce a variety and abundance of plant life. He was going to provide agriculture that produced harvest for future food and commerce. There is the first expectation of reproduction, the providing of like kind and declared ‘good
Day 4 God reveals the foreshadow of His Promise & Presence
God creates celestial bodies
Ps 33:6
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
Scientists were looking in the deepest, darkest areas of space and they began to discover more and more galaxies that exists, more than they ever knew before. God is not efficient and he is enormous.
This light is different from the light he separated in verse 3. This light is more like a lampstand or chandelier, like the lights in the tabernacle, the sanctuary of God. These lights were to be signs and function as ways God would reveal himself or his presence. The seasons specifically related to festivals and religious feast days, the socioreligious calendar. In
Genesis 15:5-6
5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
God used these celestial lights to indicate the promise he was making with Abraham
Day 5 God reveals He is the protector
God creates living creatures in the water and sky he has created, the first things he creates he also populates. . V21 great creatures of sea – water was understood as source of chaos that everything came from. Now God creates
‘hataniynim’ (tanniyn) sea-serpents, monsters. He creates the threat of ... he puts teath in the chaos to prove he is the protector and not themselves. It is allowed to reproduce.
There will always be fearful things in our world, God did not eliminate threats, but makes himself present and our protector, the fortress in which we are to turn to and find protection
God is praised as mastering fully whatever foe, earthly or cosmic that was a threat to the order of creation
He is our strong tower and our present help in time of need. Ps 18:2; 46:1
Day 6 God reveals Himself – in image and likeness
Two stages of creation:
God commands the land to produce living creatures and animals are created. God orders them as large livestock, domesticated and wild animals. Each have their role and place in the created order. By livestock God is providing food and commerce and wild animals He allows for threat of chaos in the order. He continues to reveal himself as the provider and protector
He reveals himself as sovereign, Sustainer, Provider, Protector with the purpose of Promise
Now he reveals his highest creation, a creation that bears his image, man and woman. We are going to talk more about this next week.
All of creation was to come to this point
God creates our habitat – a time, place, substance, protection to live and live well. He places boundaries that force us to trust him and acknowledge that it is He who gives us life and everything in it
Acts 17:25-28
he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’
Time is in His Hands – He is soverign, sustainer, provider, protector,
Eccl 3:1-11
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Time and the times of life are in the hands of God
Weather – rain, wind, fire, hail, lightning, thunder was in the storehouse of God (at God’s disposal). The climate will sometimes work for you and sometimes against you
They had to look to God for the harvest. Many things can work against them – a bad year can wipe out the crops, giving farmers insufficient food for the coming year, inadequate feed for their livestock, negligible seed for next years planting. It would not take long for the farmer and his family to be in a financial crisis resulting in the farmer or his family ending up in debt-slavery. Because it was predominately an agrarian society these problems didn’t just affect individual families, but everyone suffered
Time, weather/climate, agriculture are three functions that are significant, beyond our control and define our existence.
In the Origins, God is asking us to Acknowledge Him – for who he is and what He is doing , He is capable of bringing something out of nothing and creating order in our lives.
He reveals himself as sovereign, Sustainer, Provider, Protector with the purpose of Promise
This morning, will you let the God who by His word spoke creation into existence speak into your heart?
Jesus said Matt 6:25-34
25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The God who looks after creation will also look after your life, But he is looking for men & women who will put Him and His Kingdom first in their lives