If you'll turn in your Bibles all the way to the beginning of them, the book of Genesis, chapter 1. We'll start in verse 3 today. This is just the second of our new series in Genesis. And Lord willing, the plan is to get up to Genesis 11 by Easter, and then we'll sort of take a break from Genesis and then come back to it in the summer. So we'll sort of do some long stretches in Genesis, but then turn to some other things as well. But for now, we're in Genesis 1, starting in verse 3, and it's page 1 in the Bibles around you. So we'll be on page 1 today. In a moment, I'll have you stand and we're just gonna read the first few verses together to sort of set the stage. It's good to read God's Word aloud together, but then throughout the sermon, I'll read the next portion as we cover it. Because today, Lord willing, we're gonna look at most of the first six days of creation in the next 25 minutes or so. So that's why we say Lord willing. Let's stand together. And let me just read verses three through five. As you know, it in many ways sets the tone and the pattern for what we're gonna see in the other days of creation. But let's just hear God's word as it's read to start us off. So Genesis 1, three through five. Hear this as it is, God's holy word to you. 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. This is God's word. You may be seated. As I said, we'll turn to those other passages as we go. Well, as we look at this creative work of God in Genesis 1, there's sort of this ongoing debate in art and literature of what's the relationship between the artist and the piece of artwork. Should we understand these things sort of together? Or can you separate a piece of art from the artist? And there's some good sort of debate. When I was going to college and studying literature, very much the pendulum had swung toward, no, once you have a piece of artwork, once you have a book, sorry, author, you have nothing else to say about it. We want to just look at the art in and of itself. And certainly we could look at the historical context and things like that, but as it were, it doesn't really matter what the author intended or what their background was, right? And there's some good things about that, right? You know what it feels like to maybe give a presentation at school or at work, and if people are confused by it, you want to explain it, but either way, you've given it, it's there, it's sort of an entity in itself. And so there's good debates we can have about this, and yet when it comes to this account of God's creation, we very much cannot separate the Creator from the creation. in the sense that we can divorce them one from another and simply study the creation without seeing the fingerprints of the creator all over it. In another sense, we can distinguish them. God is distinct from his creation. He is creator, we are creature. But when you look out at God's world, as we start to see shaped in these verses, We are meant, God made us, meant for us to see that and turn toward the Creator in awe, in worship, in reverence, in a life that would serve Him. And so I pray that that would be your experience today, even as we walk through these days of creation. You can see there's an outline in your bulletin. A little bit different than we normally do. In one sense, we'll just sort of walk through the text together, summarizing, highlighting a few things that are going on here, not saying all that could be said. We could spend so much time just in this one chapter. And then you'll see those three points at the end, in many ways, three points of reflection. After hearing God's Word, what are some reflection and application that we might have from this text? We've said it before, but kids, as you're taking notes today, this is a wonderful passage to be maybe drawing pictures about each day of creation to help remind you of, well, what did God make on that day and what was going on on this day? So with all that in mind, you could see that the title is From Formless to Fullness, but sort of the imperative, what do we do here at the end of the day is behold your creator. So even as we move through this from formless to fullness, I want you to walk away today, myself included, beholding in reverent worship your creator and committed to living for him. So let's look again at day one, verses three through five, as we just read. Let me read it again, just so you can see this pattern. You'll start to see things show up in each of these other days of creation. And God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. 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. Now, you'll start to notice things that he begins to repeat. There's this pattern of, and God said something, and there was, or elsewhere you'll see, and it was so. God speaks and things happen. And this really is, in the Hebrew, just the simple past tense. God said, past tense, this happened, right? It's meant to sort of just land on us that way. Some other sort of patterns, you see this separating and dividing, where God is separating and dividing, distinguishing between light and darkness. You'll start to see that throughout the creation account. We'll see that God is a God of order. He is ordering his creation here, light and darkness. And then that pattern at the end where it says there was evening and there was morning the first day. And we start to see that on each day of creation. And just a note on that, you might think evening then morning. In the Jewish mind, that was the reckoning of the day. You'd have the evening and the morning, and then it would be the next day. So, in other words, the Sabbath day, for instance, would start that evening, whereas we're used to thinking, you know, morning to evening. That's why it says evening, morning, the first day. Now, what's going on here? In day one, it's light and darkness. God said, let there be light, and there was light. Wouldn't you have loved to see what that was like? And in one sense, the way Moses, as we've said, he's the author, the way he's writing this, it's as if you as the hearer are like a witness to these things, that you're seeing these things happen, and light appears. And God saw that the light was good, that's another thing that will be repeated, that it's good. God saw that it was good, and then God separates the light from the darkness, the light he calls day, and the darkness he calls night. Now, maybe you're asking, well, wait a minute, we're about to read in a few days of creation that the sun and the moon and the stars are created. And we know those as sort of like the source of light from the earthly perspective here. So what's happening here? This is a good time to note, I'm just going to make a few passing notes about how do we understand these days of creation in this creation account. And I hope it whets your appetite. In January, on the first Sunday, Lord willing, I want to have sort of a sermon Q&A deep dive into how do we understand the days of creation? Are these literal 24-hour days? Or is there some other understanding happening here? Let me just say a few things. First, sort of cards on the table, my own view, my understanding of these things is a 24-hour understanding of these days. And so as I preach this, you'll kind of see that that's the perspective. It's the more perhaps traditional view of this passage. But within even our Reformed, Bible-believing, conservative world, there are brothers and sisters who don't hold to a 24-hour view of these days. We'll sort of do a taxonomy of views in January, Lord willing, so I'm hoping a lot of people come to that Sunday school. I'll try to record it too, where we can really look into these things together. I remember my first interaction with Trinity many, many years ago was Steve Johnson and some others. We teamed up together to do a Q&A with our youth group on creation and how do we understand this and the days of creation. And so Steve presented and I had been getting to know him. I got to meet, you know, some of the students and parents at that time, long before we ever came to Trinity. So, sort of dear to my heart. But as we think about this, our brothers and sisters who might not see 24-hour literal days here would point to evidence like, well, there was light and darkness before there was ever a source for light and darkness. And so we could perhaps understand where they're coming from with that. And yet, again, cards on the table, my view that these are chronological days here, and our brothers and sisters would agree, too, that God himself is light, 1 John 1, 5. And so, again, I'd love to see what this would have been like, but certainly God can create light here and then later order it to the sun and the moon. Okay, are you getting a taste of how little we can cover in a few minutes here? Let's go to the next day, day two. If day one was light and darkness, day two is the expanse, the skies and the heavens. Let me read for us verses six through eight. 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. Now you see those same patterns, evening, morning, second day, you see a separation of things, he's a God of order. But here he's ordering things that, again, you have to get into the Hebrew mindset that God is speaking to for them, and as God's presenting it, here you have the earth, we'll sort of work backwards, it's being created here, but the finished earth, you have the earth, you have the waters around and under the earth, You have the sky or the heavens above, just sort of even in the way we think of things. Within the sky near, you know, clouds, rain, et cetera, you have what's called the firmament. And even the word in Hebrew is almost like a, almost like a brass bowl that would, like a dome that would be pictured standing up sort of above the sky and heavens, as it were. and separating the sky and heavens from their view is the waters above the heavens. So you had waters, firmament, the sky or the heavens, the earth, and then waters below. I have a neat visual that you can't see right now. Come find me afterward if you want to see it. It helps me a lot. But that's what is happening here. God is ordering things and he's separating, again, it's going from formless to fullness, but also from formless to shaped and ordered. And so he's here in day two, he's separating the heavens from these waters above. And then it's not sort of talked about here, but then even above that would be like heaven where God and the angels dwell. And so you see him ordering these things even here in day two. We turn to day three, let me read verses nine through 13. And God said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so. And 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 in 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 in 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. You can see each day of creation starts to get a little bit more elaborate. Even the number of verses starts to grow. So there's even a fullness appearing even in the text itself. And on this third day of creation, you see the separation of land and sea. And then you see the beginning of the filling of the land with the plants, with the vegetation. But again, with our understanding of their cosmology, again, you see, let the waters under the heavens, right? So you have waters above, firmament, sky. Now these waters under the heavens, let's separate those. Let them be gathered together into one place so that dry land would appear. It's sort of what happens when we finally clean our kids' rooms, and it's coated in toys and things. And as you start to put things away, you're like, oh, the carpet is that color? But here, like literally forming things in such a way so that now you have earth or the land and the seas. Again, God is a God of order. He's putting all the structures in place. Now you have the sky, you have the land, you have the sea. And he's about to start filling these things. And that's where you see in verse 11 onward, these different plants and even the way it's just this full description of all the different kinds of plants and vegetation that God is bringing forth. There's a fullness to it, even in how it's described. And so you start to see this. And again, He calls it good. He calls it good. We see that word good or that declaration that it's good in verse 3, verse 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31. And of course, in verse 31, we'll see next week, that's when He calls all of it very good after He has made a mankind. And good here doesn't just mean like, oh yeah, it's good. We're like, it's good enough. Remember when you had a paper due? And maybe, I would always say this, a paper is never done, it's just due. Do you know what I'm talking about? Or a project for work, it's never done. You could always improve upon it, but it's due at some point. And so it has to be good enough to turn in. That's not what this word means. This is God himself saying that it is good, it is valuable, it is pleasing to him. He is, as we saw in Psalm 104, he's delighting in his own work of creation. There's joy in the work. And so that's day four, I'm sorry, day three, land, sea, and plants. Day four, we start to see the sun and the moon and the stars. Let me read verses 14 through 19. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. 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. This wonderful passage, as you see the sun and the moon and the stars. He says this is for days and nights and for seasons. We were looking in Psalm 104 a few weeks ago, just this gift that God would even establish rhythms and seasons and day and night and weeks and months and years, and even the festal year for Israel. This was a gift that he gave to his people. You also start to see really the, the purpose behind what God is doing here. There's a sense in which he's making all things and yet there's also a sense in which he's preparing something for his beloved people. Do you see that? So how amazing to think that he's making all things. God could have just made, he could have stopped here. We have sky and we have land and we have vegetation and we have sun and moon and stars, maybe even bring in some animals. He could have never made man. And he's God, he could have decided not to do that. And yet what we see toward the end of, we'll see this more next week, if I find it here. In verse 29, after man's been created, he says, 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. Isn't that amazing that in one sense, God made even the plants for God's people. And then here, the times and the seasons and day and night, certainly animals benefit from this, but humans are the ones conscious of these things. And so that even this amazing creation is very personal. And it's also interesting here with the sun, the moon, and the stars, the way it is described makes it clear that Moses is speaking against the sort of false mythologies of his day. We've talked about this before that much of the Old Testament is interacting with the ancient world around it. the Israelite people were about to go into the land of Canaan. They were about to go into a land filled with false gods, like Baal, the storm god, or like other gods that, or often they would see the moon or the sun as gods themselves, right? And so we think potentially Moses here even intentionally calls them the great light, he doesn't even name them as sun and moon, to even contradict that idea that they are somehow deified. One author puts it this way. To some of the ancients, day and night suggested warring powers. To modern man, merely a spinning world. Genesis knows nothing of either conflict or chance in this, only of the watchful creator who assigns to everything its value, its place, and its meaning. And then the stars too, did you catch how interesting this is in verse 16 at the end? He made these lights, the lesser light to rule the day and the night, and the stars. How many stars are there? And the stars. He just made the stars too. And we know elsewhere from Scripture, he knows each by name. So it's not like an arbitrary, like he just kind of threw them out there. He made and the stars, and again, in the ancient world, the stars, pagans often credited the stars, which many were numbered among the gods, with controlling human destiny. And so that same author says, in these few simple sentences, the lie is given to superstition as old as Babylon and as modern as newspaper horoscopes, right? that God made. He is the creator. These are merely creations and creatures of him. Even these great, amazing things like sun and moon and stars. Day five, verses 20 through 23, we start to see the creatures of sea and air. Let me read that for us. And God said, 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, be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters and the seas and let the birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day. So it's interesting to notice things that are similar to what's come before and things that are different here in day five. Similar is that he's continuing from formless to fullness. He's continuing to fill the earth, right? And here we see especially the forming of sea creatures and the forming of creatures of the air. The Hebrew word covers not just birds but insects. You're thinking, why? But God created them, insects, flying creatures of any kind. And again, you see the fullness language. He wants the sea to swarm with creatures. He wants the sky to have flying creatures going across this expanse. Again, God could have just created an empty creation. He could have. But He wants a full creation, teeming with life. I think that reflects something of His fullness, the very God who has life in Himself that He now shares in love with His creation. So that's what's similar here, but what's different? You might have noticed in verse 22. We have the first benediction, the first blessing in all of scripture. So even God starts with fullness, but he continues. He gives a mandate, a creation mandate that they would continue to fill the earth. You start to see even God's purpose wasn't just to make something and then step away from it. It was to make something to prepare it for God's people. And then there was something that was gonna continue to happen. And we'll see this again as the same words are used of mankind in verse 28. 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. We'll start to see when we get to chapter two, even as it zooms in on the Garden of Eden, that God's purpose, the vision, even in these early words, is that the Garden of Eden would spill over and fill the earth. Of course, the fall happens, and we'll get to that. But here, we see God blessing the animals, giving them this creation mandate. We see His purpose in creation. Day six, verses 24 through 31 really, but let's focus first on just these first few verses. 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. And so we have the completion sort of of the animal kingdom. We've had animals that fly. We have animals swarming the seas. Now the land itself is beginning to team with animals from livestock to wildlife to lizards to anything that creeps on the ground. It covers the whole gambit, and you see the fullness again of what God is doing. Next week, we'll see that day six continues with, let us make man in our image, and we'll reflect on what that means. And we saw in verse 28 that he blesses mankind and says, go fill and subdue the earth. And then in verse 31, God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. So what do we do here with these days of creation? And this declaration of God that it was good, it was good, and then it was very good. It was pleasing to God. It wasn't just do, it was good. He was glorified in it. When we come back to the title of Behold Your Creator, Behold your Creator." I said last week, if we can get into the mindset of the Israelites who were hearing this from Moses and think, why did they need to hear Genesis 1? I think of it, they had come out of the land of Egypt. They had spent some time in the wilderness. We don't know exactly where on the timeline, but somewhere between their time in the wilderness and coming into the land of Cain in those 40 years, we believe this book is written, likely spoken out loud to them. And they're thinking, okay, we've come out of Egypt. We've been dealing with our own sins still. We've seen a God who is gracious, but also disciplines us in love. We've been given promises that we're gonna come into this land. He's gonna provide for us. But we're sort of in this weird limbo. And Moses writes, inspired by the Holy Spirit, in the beginning God. The Israelites need to know that. They're right in limbo. They're right in the midst of history. They don't know how it's going to turn out. They have promises. Do they believe them? But in the beginning, God. And they're right on the cusp of the promised land, as it were, and what do we see but a creation account of all things, that God is preparing even all of the creation for His people, His beloved people, that they would have a place to dwell, that they would be called upon to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, that He would give them the food that they need. If He prepared all of creation for His people, certainly He can bring us into the promised land, flowing with milk and honey. Surely He can provide for us despite our doubts. And you see, as you start to think about the Israelites, you start to realize, why do we need Genesis 1? Why do we need Genesis 1? Because we too have been given promises. We too are waiting for Christ's second coming. We too are in this sort of limbo Remember in 1 Peter, we talked about being elect exiles. We are in this paradox where we are God's chosen people. He loves us. We have all these promises, and yet we're right in the midst of this world of suffering and woe. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow in a much smaller sense, but we know the end of history. We know the promised land, the new Eden that we'll step into one day. And so behold your creator, people of God. Your creator who, number one, is a God of order. He's a God of order. We just saw in this, he's separating and distinguishing and making and shaping things that reflect something of who he is. And I would ask you, who orders your life? Who do you look to for order and structure Is it your own digital planner? Is that what gives order to your life? It's a good tool to have, so don't mishear that. But who gives you ultimate order in your life, and therefore safety? Number two, God is a God of purpose. He's a God of intention. Remember that verse 29? He made all those plants for God's people to eat. He makes sun and moon and stars to mark the seasons, especially for mankind. He has purpose for them. He prepares a land for them. And then even after the fall, even after Adam and Eve fall, He still has a purpose for them. He provides for them. And He gives them a promise of a son who will come and crush the head of the serpent. We'll see all this in the weeks to come. Even as the people are drawn into Egypt and then brought out, even in their sin, God continues to have a purpose for them. And if for them, then for us. He's a God of purpose and intention. And so I would ask you, who grants purpose to your life today? Who gets to set the agenda? And number three, as we're beholding our Creator, He is a God of abundance. He's a God of abundance. As we said, he could have made an empty world and done no one wrong. He could have made nothing and done no one wrong. He didn't owe anyone creation. And yet in love, God created. And in love, he didn't just create a barren world. He created one that he filled that's teeming with life. And then especially his people, that they would be abundant, that eventually we'll see Abraham being promised that your descendants will be like the stars in the heavens. of which I made everyone. God is the God who has life in himself, like a fountain of living water. And so we see this abundant creation reflecting an abundant creator. And we've talked about this before, we live out of our metaphors with God, right? If God is a God who made things and they're structured and then he steps away from them and he's coming back one day, good luck. It's a very different Christian life than this God who has abundant life, of whom Jesus says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Jesus doesn't say, I came that I would forgive their sins legally and then see them in heaven. but that they may have life and have it abundantly. I remember our good friends, they moved away now, but I just remember this moment, and maybe I've shared this story before, we were gonna have dessert after dinner, and kids are always really logical once you say you're gonna have dessert. And Addie Mae, the daughter, was getting anxious, kind of worried, because they were showing, hey, we want to serve our guests first. She was like, well, maybe I won't get any ice cream. And I remember, Aaron, her dad, not chastising her, but just getting right down on her level and saying, Addie Mae, there'll always be more. There'll always be more. God is a God of abundance. He's not a God of scarcity. Now we might be in times of scarcity, we might be in times of suffering, and even then, he is abundant in his love and grace for us. The same Jesus who said, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly, that is a promise for all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. It's really in Jesus Christ, looking to him who lived and who died for us, that we find this fullness, this fountain of living water. So much so that Thomas Watson reflects, and we'll end on this thought together, of this gift of Jesus himself. He says, at the pearl of great price, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is the quintessence of all good things. To give us Christ is more than if God had given us all the world. God can make more worlds, but he has no more Christ to bestow. It is such a golden mine that the angels cannot dig to the bottom. He has no more Christ to bestow to us. If he has given you Christ Jesus, his greatest gift, how will he not also with him graciously give you all things? He's a God of abundance. And so would you behold your creator today? And even as we continue in this creation account, in this account of Genesis, would you come back to a simple faith in this God who was in the beginning making all things? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word, that it establishes us in who we are and who you are. And I pray that we would be a people established in the midst of a world of shifting sand and a world of anxiety, even creeping into the church often. I pray that we would be a people established in God, in the Lord, in you. So would you be with us, drawing us always to a bigger view of who you are and the fullness of you through Jesus Christ, we pray.