OK, Genesis chapter 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of 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 he 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. 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 and the earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and trees bearing fruit in which their seed each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was morning and evening and there was morning the third day. In the beginning, God created. I guess if there are any words more familiar in the Bible, no one has mentioned them to me. Even people who've never read the Bible tend to know that this is how the Bible begins. It begins with the idea of God creating. But in those five words, three in the Hebrew text, we are faced with several significant ideas that are fundamental to understanding the Christian faith and fundamental to understanding the world in which we live. When the Bible tells us, for example, that God in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, it presupposes that God existed before the beginning, that God was there to be the creator. And so while everything else has a starting place, God doesn't. He is truly the one eternal thing in the universe. The Bible is clear from Genesis to Revelation that God has no beginning. He has no end. He is the everlasting God. He is the God who does not change. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, they're all the same to God who is above time, who does not find himself limited by time. He is the infinite eternal God. But this God who is infinite and eternal is also the God who made everything else. Whatever exists, exists because God created it. And that includes not just the physical world, rocks and trees and skies and seas, as we sing in the old hymn, but also the immaterial things. Time itself is part of God's creation. Heaven is part of God's creation. Angels are part of God's creation. Anything and everything that exists things that you can see, things you can't see, things that are heavenly, things that are earthly, things in the distant part of the universe that are still beyond the reach of astronomers and radio telescopes, all of these things that exist, exist because God brought them into being. And he brought the stuff of which they were made to being in the beginning. But in those words, we're also reminded that the God who created all things therefore has a certain authority and right over those things. He is the creator. You remember both Isaiah in the Old Testament and the Apostle Paul in the New Testament described God as being like a potter and the things that he has made as being like his clay. And the apostle Paul asked the question, does not the potter have right over the clay to make of it whatever he wishes? And there's a kind of inherent truth behind that question that is like this. If God made all things, then doesn't God have the right to rule those things? Is he not the owner of those things? And does he not have the right to do with those things as he wishes because they're all his things? And so we read in Psalm 24 that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the seas and all that they contain. And we read in Isaiah chapter 40 that God is the creator of the ends of the earth and all the nations and all the kings of the earth and everything that happens on the earth. is part of his dominion, it's under his authority. The apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians that God works all things after the counsel of his will and he is free to do that because he is the owner of these things. And so, as Paul reminds us in Romans 9, there's nothing that we can really say to God to complain about how he does stuff, because after all, it's his stuff. Who are we to talk back to God, Paul asked. Who are we to question how God runs his world? We don't have that right because he is the creator and we are but the creature. And there's a kind of vast difference between the two. He is eternal and unlimited in all that he is and all that he does. And we are simply here because he chose to make us. And because he chose to put us in the world at the time he did and at the place he did. We don't like to think of ourselves as being kind of small specks in the universe, but there are times when we need to face up to that truth. There's not one of us here who got to choose the day in which he was born. Jerry's got a birthday tomorrow, and he doesn't, he didn't get to choose what day he wanted to be born on. I think he probably wanted to be born on September like me, He was impatient and came early, as Jerry is. And so he has an August birthday on the last day of August. But he didn't get to choose that. We don't get to choose our parents. We didn't get to choose in which century we were going to be born. All those things are outside of our control. We are simply the product of these other things. God, on the other hand, is not the product of anything. He is the one who produces product. He is the God who makes all things and owns all things. And as a result, the Bible is quite clear that there is this fundamental difference between God as creator and everything else as creation. God is over all things. He made them, he owns them, he's distinct from them, and he rules them in his kingly and sovereign power. Now, this is a place where we ought to stop because already we're coming to one of those places where Christianity is set apart from most thinking of modern society. For 150 years or so, the Western world has been dominated by people that are usually referred to as materialists or naturalists. And materialists or naturalists are people who believe that the only things that exist in this world are the things that are made of real, tangible stuff. There's nothing invisible, nothing spiritual, nothing unphysical in the world. All of that is the product of human imagination. And so you go to a modern medical school, you're probably going to find people who will teach you that Physicians have almost total control over human beings because human beings are nothing more than a conglomeration of electrical charges and chemicals and fibers and tissues and systems. If you were to ask the people in a modern medical school, what about the soul? Many of the faculty would tell you there's no such thing as a soul. There's nothing about you that's immaterial or spiritual. Guilt is a product of chemicals in the brain that aren't working correctly. Depression is always a physical cause, maybe a chemical imbalance or something like that. Whatever your issues are, they're not spiritual issues, they're all physical. And because they're all physical, we can treat them by physical means. And that's why if you have a problem, even if it's a psychological problem, the first recourse is to give you what nowadays? A drug. Something to alter your physical state because that's the mindset. You are the product of a lot of physical forces that can be altered by physical means. 200 years ago, if you'd had the same problem, they probably would have sent you to a pastor. Because people would have said, you're more than a body. You're also a soul. And many of the problems that we feel are problems that come to us as a result of guilt that comes from sin and disobedience and living a life that is in rebellion against God. And you need to not only treat your physical causes, but you also need to treat the spiritual causes. But the world in which we live today kind of dismisses spiritual things. unless you are from the eastern part of the world. And by eastern, I don't mean Atlanta or Charleston. I mean more like China and Korea and Japan and Tibet, because eastern religions tend to be pantheistic. And pantheists tend to believe that there is a God, but God and the world in which he made, the world which he made are pretty much identical. They overlap and that God is sort of the soul of the universe and the universe is God's body. And so everything needs to be treated as divine because everything is a reflection of God. Everybody knows PETA, the people for the ethical treatment of animals. If you read PETA literature, you'll find out that most of the people who started PETA and who are behind it are very involved in transcendental meditation and yoga and other things, which are typically expressions of pantheism. And the reason they think so highly of animals, while they might even be willing to abort human babies, they don't want to abort any puppies or kittens. But the idea is that they are just as valuable as you are in the universe. And they are just as much a part of God as you are of God. And therefore, they need to be treated right. And the whole idea of pantheism is you don't so much get in touch with God as you get in touch with the universe. You kind of find your place of settling in in the world. So materialism and naturalism on one hand say there is no God. Pantheists, on the other hand, say everything is God. And here's the Bible telling us that the truth is somewhat in between. There is a God and there is a universe, but they're distinct. But the God who made the universe rules over all these things. And this idea is generally known philosophically as theism, the idea that there is a God who is separate from his creation and who rules over it. And certainly, the book of Genesis in the very first verse opens up by reminding us that there is a theistic world in which we live. God created the heavens and the earth. But this is also going to set the stage for what Moses is going to tell us in the rest of the book. He's kind of luring us in here. He's throwing out the bait for us right here at the first verse of chapter one. What's the bait? The bait is, if God created you and everything about you, and God created everything in the world in which you live, then to worship anything other than God is idolatry. Because no matter what you worship, if you worship something other than the God of the Bible, then you're not worshipping the creator, you're worshipping something that's created. And you're substituting the one living in true God for something lesser. and you are rebelling against the God who made you and owns you. And I said Moses is kind of luring us into his trap here in the very first verse because he's wanting us to understand, after we get to chapter three, for example, that the tendency of human nature is to be idolatrous. We want to love money more than we love God. Or we want to love our pleasure more than we want to love God. Or we want to love success more than we want to love God. Or we just simply want to love ourselves more than we want to love God. We want to be prosperous and healthy without God's blessing and without God's approval. And whenever we do that, we become idolaters. Now, if you've ever read the Old Testament, you know that the prophets made a big thing out of idolatry. They always condemned those who worshiped Baal, and Molech, and Chemosh, and all the Canaanite gods, and the Egyptian gods, and the gods of the Assyrians, and the gods of the Babylonians. And you remember Paul goes to Athens and preaches against all the gods of the Greek pantheon. And the message is always the same. You're all idolaters. You have substituted the infinite eternal creator God for something that's less than God. Maybe he's a statue of a fish if you're a Baal worshipper, or maybe he's some kind of God-like man creature if you were one of the Greeks in Athens. But whatever it is, you have substituted for your affection and obedience and allegiance something that isn't anything like the real God. Because as Elijah reminded the prophets of Baal, they didn't make you. That statue didn't make you. That statue does not hear your prayers. That statue cannot love you. That statue cannot do anything to alter your circumstances. He's just something that God made. Whereas the God of the Bible is a God who is unmade. And he is the God who owns all things. And he is the God who rules the winds and the waves. He's the God who parts the Red Sea. He's the God who can split mountains by fire and lightning. He is the God who can raise the dead. And the whole motif of the Old Testament and the New Testament is If there is a creator God who brings all things into being out of nothing by the word of his power in the space of six days, why would you want to worship anything less? It's futile. And not only is it vain to worship creatures that can't talk to you and love you, it's also rebellion against the one true God who did make you. and who has provided you your daily bread, and who has even sent a Savior into the world to redeem you from your sin. So Moses, in these first five words, is kind of taking us into the front door of this whole story that's going to last all the way to the book of Revelation, And it is the story of God made you, God owns you, God has every right to do with you as he wishes. Therefore, you had best obey him. And if you fail, you had best hear his solution to the problem, which is his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything else will fail, because everything else is idolatry. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, verse 2 tells us that the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. There have been some debate among Old Testament scholars down through the years as to exactly what without form and void means. But it seems to be from the context, and we'll see how it unfolds as we work our way through chapter 1, that what we have here is simply a kind of synopsis statement. Moses said, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth, as God originally brought these things into being, was kind of disorganized. All the stuff was there, but it wasn't in its finished form. It was kind of an amorphous blog. We mentioned Paul referring to God, the creator, as the potter. with a block of clay. If you've ever been to a potter's shop and watched them throw the clay on the wheel, there's not much to look at at the beginning, is there? It's just there. It doesn't have any kind of definite shape. They wet it down, it kind of shifts as the wheel turns. It doesn't seem to be worth anything. It doesn't look like anything. And that's the kind of description that Moses is giving us here. God, in the beginning, created everything and it was just kind of there. We would say it's just stuff at this point. And it didn't have anything to even lighten it up. It was darkness. Nothing but darkness. And, as the English Standard Version tells us here, the Hebrew vav here could be translated but as well, and or but the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. There's the good news, Moses. The world was kind of, a congealing mess, but God's spirit was there. And the spirit was hovering kind of like an eagle, hovering over the land, just circling around, guarding and looking and protecting. And what Moses is doing is he's setting the stage here for what's about to take place. God's going to separate the sky from the water, and he's going to separate the light from the darkness, and he's going to separate the dry land from the seas, and he's going to create other kinds of things. But at this point, the stuff's there, and Moses wants us to understand that the Spirit of God was also there. That's really critical. Why? I want you to think about Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus. Everybody knows John chapter three, Jesus and the Pharisee who comes to him by night and asks, you know, about, well, actually commends Jesus at the beginning for all his great works. No one can do the things that you do unless God is with him. And Jesus immediately talks to him about being born again. And The idea is, Nicodemus, you exist. You were created. You were born in all the natural ways. But what you really need is a new creation. You need to have a creation from within. You need to be born again. You need to have a new birth. You need to be born from above, as some New Testament translations put it. But what I think Jesus really wants Nicodemus to understand is he says, you not only need to be born again in order to see and enter the kingdom of God, but you must be born of water and of, what's the next phrase? The spirit. The real transforming power in the world, Nicodemus, is the transforming power that comes from God himself, the Holy Spirit, as the agent by which God is going to change things that don't look changeable. I mean, that was Nicodemus's question, wasn't it? How can a man be born again? When he's old, can he enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born? And the idea is from all the physical, normal, natural, ordinary things that we look at in the world, no, you can't get a new start. Once you're 52 years old, you're always 52 years old, 39 in Jerry's case. Once you're gone and you've already kind of amassed a whole group of scars from athletic injuries and you've got your arthritic knees and joints and you're getting close to social security age and those kinds of things, there's no going back and resetting the clock and starting all over again. You might wish you could, but it just doesn't work that way from a natural point of view. But Jesus is telling Nicodemus, look, The Spirit of God can do things that aren't natural. The Spirit of God is hovering over this world, and He is capable of turning people into new creatures from within. He's capable of giving them a new birth. He's capable of giving them a fresh start and making them not to be no longer enemies of God, but to become friends of God. and servants of God. In Nicodemus, that's what you need. You need the Spirit of God to do a great creative work within you. Luke understood that because we remember how when the apostle went to Philippi and he preached to Lydia there, and told her about Jesus and the resurrection from the dead. Luke says, and the Spirit of God opened her heart to receive the word. We don't know if Lydia had heard things about Jesus before or not. She was at a prayer meeting when Paul found her. She certainly was acquainted with the scriptures. But what she didn't have was the Spirit coming to do this remarkable work of a new creation. The same Spirit that was at work in Genesis 1-2 is going to be at work all through the pages of the Bible and He's going to call people to be prophets and priests and kings and He's going to call people into the kingdom of Christ and he's going to empower Jesus the Messiah to do his work. Remember the Bible tells us that Jesus was full of the spirit without measure and the spirit of God descended on him as a dove at his baptism to inaugurate his ministry and the idea is that God created the world and the world exists as God creates it in this world of nature, but there's also this world of grace where the Spirit of God applies God's supernatural saving, redeeming power to people's hearts and lives and He changes people and He does miracles and He turns the world upside down. And the Spirit can do this because He is He is the God who created the heavens and the earth. He's above the creation. And so if the spirit wants to make the sun stand still, he can. If the spirit wants to raise the dead, he can. If he wants to part the Red Sea and then swallow up Pharaoh's army, he can. And he can do that because he is the creator God. But it is through the spirit that the work tends to take place. Now we could stop there and ask a question. What does that say about John chapter one and Colossians one 15 and 16 or Hebrews one two, because all those passages tell us that Jesus created the world. You remember 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 came into being through him. Without him was not anything made that has been made. We remember how the book of Hebrews opens up and tells us that all things that exist came into being through Christ. And that's true too. The work of creation is a work of the triune God, God, the Father, planning it, Jesus, the Son, executing it, God, the Holy Spirit, empowering these things, making them effective as the Spirit does. So it's God's work, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But Moses wants us to understand here that even from the beginning, the Spirit of God is already there. He's already prepared. There's no sin in the world yet. There's no need for him to be the redeeming spirit. But even in creation, the Spirit of God is doing his thing. It's also true in this passage that the word of God is active and powerful. Notice how God brings the world into being. Verse three, God said, let there be light and there was light. There's a little kind of reading tool that is present in the Hebrew text that doesn't translate into English. And I don't wanna make too much of it, but if you were to go to a synagogue and you were to listen to them read Genesis 1, 3 in Hebrew, you would always find that they had their little pointer and they're reading from right to left. And you remember Genesis is over in the backside of the Bible. And the guy would read in Hebrew and he would get to the pointer and he would basically get to the place and said, and God said, let there be light. And he would stop with the pointer and there'd be this dramatic pause. And then he would read and there was light. Now, why the dramatic pause? Because it's pretty astounding, isn't it? God said, let there be light. There was no light before that. There was darkness over the face of the deep. Light didn't even exist. There was nothing even like light. There was no stuff of which light was to be made. but all God had to do was to will this light to exist and God simply had to say, let there be light. And when God's word goes forth, it goes forth with such power and efficacy that when the Lord speaks, things happen. It's kind of hard for me to comprehend. I guess I'm hardened by being a parent. How many times did I tell my children growing up Do that now. It just never seemed to work. I could say, let your room be clean. Didn't work. I could say it again, let your room be clean. And it wouldn't work. I might have to say, let your room be clean or you're not going anywhere for a week. And they would start to do something. But just the words themselves didn't have any kind of creative, effective power at all, I admit it. you probably experienced the same kind of thing. You probably wish that you could just tell your boss, I need a raise and a raise would come forth. You might wish you could tell the ballot box on the first Tuesday in November, elect so-and-so as president of the United States and it would happen, but it's just not going to work. Our words don't have that kind of power. But Moses wants us to understand that God's word does. It has the power to create, it has the power to change, it has the power to undo, it even has the power to forgive. And if you think about it, the whole Bible is not only a book of God creating things out of nothing and ruling them by the word of his power, but also how God speaks, not just to the darkness so that there will be light, But he speaks to his people and says, I'm going to be your God. And you're going to be my people. And he says, you will have no other gods before me. And you'll not make any graven images. And you'll not take my name in vain. And you'll remember my Sabbath days to keep them holy. and you'll honor your father and your mother, and you won't kill, and you won't commit adultery, and you won't steal, and you won't bear false witness, and you will not covet, and you will not do these things because I say you will not do them. And that's all the authority he needs, isn't it? Because he's the creator, and we're the created things. He's up here, we're down here. And so his word has authority and power. And God sends prophets. And these prophets declare, this is what the Lord says you must do. Thus says the Lord. And that word carries authority and power. Jesus comes. And what does he do? He comes to preach. And his message is the word of God. And it has power. And the apostles come along, and they preach. And their word has power and authority because it comes from God. And then they put their words into scripture. And we have the Bible. And the Bible is the word of God, which is alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. It's able to separate between soul and spirit and bone and marrow, things that are basically inseparable. God's word can separate those things. And then when you add that the Word of God is powerful and the Spirit of God is also hovering and the Spirit of God is working through the Word, even old men like Nicodemus can be born again. And even Saul of Tarsus, who's out to destroy the church, can hear the voice of Christ and become a new creature. Those of us who are Christians understand that what happened is that God spoke to us by his powerful word and his spirit applied that word to our hearts so that we would hear what Jesus said and we would respond to him with faith and repentance and we would find in him a savior and eternal life. But the whole Bible is really a book about God speaking and us responding to his word. I used to teach a middle school class in Bible, and I used to tell them that if you want to summarize how the Bible works, it's really just two words you need to remember, revelation and response. The Bible is a book of God revealing himself to us by his word, and God calling us to respond to that revelation with faith and obedience. Revelation, response. It's all about the word. It's all about doing what God says, believing what God tells us is true, and remembering that we can believe these things because he's the creator and we're the created ones. And if you understand that, then all of a sudden Jesus' words in the Great Commission really begin to make sense. Because right before he tells us to go into all the world and make disciples of the nations, he says, all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to me. And this authority belongs to him because he's the creator. but also because he's now the resurrected Redeemer, but he's also the one who has the authoritative, powerful word that we're going to take to the world because our job for making disciples is to baptize them and then to do what? Teach them everything that Jesus has commanded us. It's the word of God. That's the focus of the ministry. It's the word of God by which the church lives. I know it's pretty entertaining. If the preacher spends 45 minutes on Sunday morning telling all kinds of stories about things that he did during the week and how he fell down and got up and all the funny people he met and all the influential people he's gotten to know over the years, and we can be entertained by those kinds of things. But the church doesn't live by preachers and preacher stories. The church lives by the word of God. And we need the Bible. And we need to pray that the spirit of God, who hovers over the world, would come and apply that word to us so that we can understand it, so that we can put it into practice. Salvation is the work of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it is the work of God that normally takes place through the word. And so God was able simply to speak, and the world came into existence. All he had to say was, let there be light. And there was light. And this light, God saw, was good. And he separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. The Hebrew word for day here is the word Yom. We would transliterate it Y-O-M in English. And I understand that the word Yom is used in the Old Testament in a variety of different senses, not all of which refer to a literal 24-hour day. The day of the Lord, as the prophets would speak of, tends to be some kind of age of peace and prosperity and blessing that's coming. Not a 24-hour day of peace and prosperity, but the day of the Lord that's coming is a long time. I understand that the New Testament tells us that With the Lord, a day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is as a day. So not always when we read about day in the Bible does it refer to 24 hours. And because of that, there are a lot of people who nowadays think that these days of creation in Genesis 1 were probably something other than 24-hour days. Maybe they were thousands of years or millions of years. And I understand where they're coming from. They're probably trying to harmonize geology and all the things we learn from paleontologists and so forth and say, well, how does that fit in with what the Bible teaches about creation? But my guess is that when Moses wrote this, writing under the authority of the spirit who's hovering over all these things, and writing at the commission of Christ, who is the living word of God. My guess is that Moses was really thinking of political 24-hour day. Because I don't think Moses was really concerned about modern scientific critics at this point. He's really simply telling us that the world was made by God, Everything was made by God. It was all made by God's plan. It was all made in Christ's purpose. It was all made by the power of the Spirit. And God, in his creative power, created the whole world in six days. And I think in Moses' mind, they really were normal, ordinary days. Now, why would you say that? I make a little summary of this in the notes down under number seven. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time with it. There are a lot of good books on this. If you're interested, I'll be glad to point you in the right direction. But four reasons under number seven for believing that Moses was probably writing about literal days. He keeps using the phrase, for example, and there was evening and there was morning. And if you simply read the text and you think there was evening and there was morning, who's thinking of a thousand year period? Nobody. We tend to think of evening and morning as being a day. One night, one day. If you don't think that's the normal reading of evening and morning, let me suggest you try something. the Plaza Hotel in New York and tell them that you have reservations for one night and one day and see if they let you stay a thousand years. See if they understand that to mean an indefinite period of time of however long you want to make it stay. They're going to tell you, you pay for one night, guess what you're going to get? One night. And you're going to get the part of the, you're going to get a day. Check in at three o'clock in the afternoon the checkout time next to the apartment You're gonna get an evening and you're gonna get a morning and that's all you're going to get and I don't care how you try to argue With me what a day is a day is a day. That's the way people think I think that's what Moses had in mind when he talks about an evening and a morning here I think the second reason that we should favor the idea of a 24-hour day is that there are six days, and then there's the creation of the Sabbath day on the seventh day. And this Sabbath day is going to be perpetuated throughout history as one day in each week. It's always going to be a 24-hour day. I know there's a kind of Sabbath year idea, but that's not based on even the six and one. That's more on the 49 and one kind of thing. But the Sabbath day is one day, 24 hours out of each week. And so I think that favors the idea of understanding the other days to be 24-hour days. The fact that on the first day, God created nothing more than light and darkness makes little sense if the days are 1,000 years long. Why did God need 1,000 years to create light out of darkness? And why did he let light? sit for 1,000 years before he did something else. These are long epochs or periods of time. And then when we come to the fourth day, it's pretty clear that the days are going to be 24-hour days, days four, five, and six, because God's going to create the sun and the moon to rule over the creation. And the days are going to continue to be evenings and mornings, but they're obviously 24-hour days there. So if they're 24-hour days at the end of the week, why should we assume that they're less than 24-hour days at the beginning of the week? Now, I'm going to confess. I wasn't there. And I look old, but I wasn't there at the creation of the world. And I don't know all the ins and outs of how God did things any more than what the text tells us. And I know that while the Bible tells me very plainly that God created all things of nothing by the word of his power in the space of six days and all very good, it doesn't tell me when he created them. I am not willing. to die on the hill of whether this was in 4004 BC or 10,000 BC or whatever because I'm not I don't think the Bible gives us a date. I don't think Moses is concerned about a date. I think if Moses had been concerned about a date, he would have given it to us. But what Moses does want us to understand is that God made all things of nothing and that he made all things by his plan. And he rules those things. And I think there's every reason to believe that they are 24-hour days. Am I going to say that someone who holds a different view is a heretic? No. Not as long as they still hold to the idea that God created all things out of nothing. And not as long as they hold that all the world owes its existence to God. and that God created Adam and Eve directly by his plan and they didn't evolve from monkeys or something like that. As long as they can hold to the general thesis of the creation story, I'm more than willing to call them brothers and sisters. But I think that the best reading of the text is to affirm that God created the world in six 24-hour days. and how that fits into geological time, I think the Lord will just have to show us at some point in the future. All right, we have just a few minutes left. Let me do a couple things in conclusion here. Let me remind you about why all of this is important for you and me as Christians. Why do we need to believe the creation story? Part of it, I think, is that we need to be reminded every day that we live as Christians in two worlds. We live in a world of nature, and we also live in a world of grace. And the world of nature we share with everybody else, Christians and non-Christians. We all breathe the same air. We all buy food at the same grocery store. We all live in earthly nations and kingdoms. And we all share the same kind of medical problems and diseases. And we share funeral homes, even, and cemeteries with non-Christians. We live in a world, a natural world, that we share with all of humanity. But as Christians, we also live in another world. We live in that world of the new creation, that world where the spirit has brought us into Christ and he has put us into Christ's body and we are citizens of a kingdom of grace, a kingdom of hope and light. And this is a kingdom that belongs to everybody who belongs to Jesus. Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, but everybody who belongs to Jesus by faith and repentance is in this kingdom. And only those who belong to Jesus by faith and repentance are in this kingdom. And it's important, I think, for us to distinguish that. Because it reminds us, as Jesus reminded Nicodemus, that you can be born in a good place. Nicodemus was born in Israel, in Old Testament Israel. He was born in a prominent family. He was well-educated. He was a ruler of the Jews. He was one of the 70 most important people in Israel as a member of the Sanhedrin. So in the world of nature, he was hot stuff. But he was a stranger to the world of grace. And Jesus reminded him that unless he was born again from above by the Spirit, he would never enter into that kingdom. You can't get into that kingdom by anything other than the Spirit of God working through the Lord Jesus Christ. And so while we share being Americans and Mississippians and Smith Countians and other things with all kinds of people, believers and unbelievers, We only share the kingdom of grace with those who are born of the Spirit with us and who confess Christ and who rejoice in him. And we who are in that kingdom should praise God every day because it was the Spirit of God who brought us there. We were dead in trespasses and sins until God made us alive together with Christ. And he did that by the Spirit. And we were saved by grace through faith. And that and out of ourselves is the gift of God. We are God's workmanship. We are part of God's creative power, the spirit working through Christ. And so creation is also important, then, for reminding us that every day is a day for being grateful. And it's a wonderful thing to live in God's world. A lot of modern churches have thrown out the old hymn books, and I think that's pretty sad. And there are a lot of children growing up today who will never sing, this is my father's world. But we need to sing that. We need to be reminded every day that it's God's world. He made it. It reflects his glory. It reflects his handiwork, as Psalm 19 tells us. But it's also the world in which God gives us our daily bread. It's the world where God has promised to work all things for our good and to see us through all the troubles and ailments and afflictions and difficulties that come with the world of nature, corrupted by sin and death. God has promised to walk with us and to bring us to glory. So every day should be a day of gratitude. It also should be a day of worship, where we acknowledge that God is our savior, but also that he is our creator. It's not enough for us simply to believe that God forgives sin, and therefore I can go to heaven. We still have to live in the world that God made. We still have to give him our allegiance. We still have to be loyal to him. We have to keep his commandments. I think every day Genesis reminds us of the power of God's word. Don't ever think that reading your Bible is a waste of time. Don't ever think that A gathering for the preaching of the word is fruitless and just an exercise in futility. Because the word of God is in fact alive and active and sharper than any double-edged sword. All Scripture is inspired, and it's all profitable, Paul tells us, for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that we can all be mature and complete in Christ. It's through the Word that God is going to make you a faithful and fruitful believer. You need the power of God's Word, and you need the Spirit of God working through the Word to keep you spiritually healthy. If the Scripture is the bread of life, don't starve yourself and expect the Spirit of God to give you an endless cruise of oil and a little batch of flour that won't run out like he did at Zarephath. Why should he do that when he has given you the Scriptures? You can hold them in your hand. You can read them. You can gather with other believers in a Bible study, and you can hear the preaching of the Word on the Lord's Day. And God will feed your soul, be in the word. And then finally, I think Genesis reminds us that the same God who can say, let there be light, and there was light, and the same God whose spirit is hovering over the face of the waters, is certainly free as the creator to do whatever he wishes. That means that he's not bound by the laws of nature, as we call them. How many times in scripture did we find God suspending the laws of nature? Parting of the Red Sea, making the sun stand still, raising Lazarus from the dead. Simon's mother-in-law being raised from the dead. I know there's a debate as to whether Simon thought that was a good thing or not, but there was the whole idea that God is able to intervene and do extraordinary things when he wants to, because he's the creator. And while I think it's a misreading of scripture for us to think that God's going to do a miracle for us every day and that we just need to wait for God's miracle, God normally works in ordinary ways to do extraordinary things. We should never fail to believe that God is capable of delivering us from whatever situation we find ourselves in. It's never hopeless. It's never fruitless. to serve God. And even if it looks like it's not paid off in the past, our hope remains firm because our trust is in the fact that God is the creator who rules all things by his mighty providence. Creation kind of sets the stage for everything else. Those of you who aren't Presbyterians, you may or may not worship in a church on Sundays where you say the Apostles' Creed or something like that. But on the handouts, you have a question from the Heidelberg Catechism, which was used to teach children for centuries now. And part of the catechism is an exposition of the Apostles' Creed. And in question 26, it says in the little sidebar, what do you believe when you say, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? And here's the answer. And it's rooted in the doctrine of creation and how creation affects the way we look at life. I believe that the eternal father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence, is my God and father because of Christ his son. And I trust him so much that I do not doubt that he will provide everything necessary for body and soul. And he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He's able to do this because he is almighty God. And he desires to do this because he's a faithful father. Let's pray.