Well, I have more than one passage of Scripture to read as text for this sermon, Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2, and 26 and 28, and Genesis 2-7, and I'll also read Psalm 104, 29 and 30. And so, beginning with Genesis 1, verses 1 and 2, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, And darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then Genesis 1, 26 through 28. Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Then God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And then Genesis 2-7, and the Lord formed The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. Genesis 2 7 and then also Psalm 104 29 and 30. You hide your face. They are troubled. You take away their breath. They die and return to the dust. You send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. It's wonderful when we look at Scripture, and this is my intention over these next few weeks, is to go through the Scripture and consider all these passages and the different things they tell us about the Holy Spirit. We typically know God the Father. He's the one we pray to. We typically know Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead. He is the one who came and died for our sins and rose from the dead. And so we celebrate every Christmas his birth and every Easter his resurrection. And yet the Spirit sometimes we neglect. I remember the one time I spoke at Coral Ridge, on a Wednesday evening, I spoke on the topic of the Holy Spirit, and after the sermon was over, one of the pastors said, we've never had that topic spoke on here before. Wow, that's interesting that that would be the case. I think sometimes we totally neglect the Holy Spirit. He's here giving glory to Christ. He spoke about in this passage, and we talk about whatever is connected with the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit himself is neglected. And somebody, as I told you before, recently asked me to preach on this topic. I had preached on it before. And yet, it was many years ago, and I didn't go into quite the depth that I am going into now. But we see God's Spirit work also, not just in our renewing of us and our sanctifying, but even before that, God's Spirit was involved, as were the Father and the Son, in even the creation of our world. God's work speaks plainly about the work of the Holy Spirit in creation. I read that verse to you first from Genesis 1 verse 2, the second verse in the Bible. The earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. All three members of the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit We're all involved in the work of creation as they are in many of the works of God. Every member of the Godhead is involved. And we see the work of creation is attributed to God. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That means God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. It's referring to all three persons in the Godhead created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1. But we read in other places where the creation is attributed either to the Father or to the Son or to the Holy Spirit. And I have some quick examples for you. The creation is attributed individually to the Father. In Malachi 2 verse 10 it says, Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Isn't that the truth? So we see that every human being was created by one God, has one Father in that sense. Now, God the Father becomes our true Father when we are born again in a different way. And yet, as far as creation is concerned, He is everyone's Father. Creation is also attributed to Jesus Christ, the Word. In John 1 it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Well, in verse 3 it says, And all things were made Through Him and without Him, the Word, Jesus Christ, nothing was made that was made. And so the Word, Jesus Christ, was involved in the creation also of the world. And then we read, too, about the Holy Spirit, Job 33, verse 4. This is just one of many verses. The Spirit of God has made me. The breath of the Almighty gives me life. And so you can see just three verses there attribute the work of creation to all three members of the Godhead separately. When we look at the scripture and attempt to consider the works of God, they seem to follow in the order of the Godhead. As I preached before, God the Father is the planner. He's the one that predestinates. He's the one that ordains. Jesus Christ It's particularly in our salvation. He's the one that comes to earth. He's the one that dies on the cross. He's the one that raises the dead. And then the Spirit comes after Jesus Christ. He's sent by the Father and the Son and does the work of our salvation in renewing us and bringing about regeneration in us and sanctifying us and making us holy. That's partly why he's called the Holy Spirit. And in this same order, I believe God worked even in the creation as he did in our salvation. The beginning, the initiation of things in Scripture is ascribed to the Father. He's the one that initiated the creation. It says in Romans 11, 36, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen. It's the Father who starts things out. It's the Father who is ultimately glorified by the Son, who is glorified by the Spirit. The building sustaining and upholding of things seems ascribed to God the Son, Jesus Christ. In Colossians 1, verses 13 through 17, it says, He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for by Him all things were created. that are in heaven and are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things consist. That's talking about Jesus. First it talks about his involvement in our salvation, but it also talks about how God created all things through him, and all things consist through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the conclusion of all things, the finishing touches, The making of things beautiful, even the giving of life, is attributed to the Holy Spirit. That is His part in creation. Notice, the adorning of the heavens is attributed to Him. By His Spirit, He adorned the heavens, it says in Job 26, 13. And so when you look up in the sky and you see how beautiful it looks, if you see this star or that star, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. He makes things beautiful. And as I talked before, you could say, God the Father made the blueprint God the Son built the house. God the Spirit puts up the drapes and paints the walls and makes it look really nice and makes it very comfortable for you. And this is what we see. It seems to be saying that God the Spirit, that's his part in our creation. He's hovering over the waters. Mentioned in Genesis 1-2, hovering over the face of the waters implies an ordering, a perfecting, and a life-giving action. It says, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. This is after God created in the beginning, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and then the next verse and the earth was without form and void and some people put a Imaginary Happening in between verse one or two of Genesis, but there's no evidence of that in Scripture They just want to put something in there, but we between one and two we see that in verse At the beginning of verse law. There's two it says without form and void meaning, and the Hebrew words are tuhu and buhu. And tuhu means formless, formlessness, confusion, unreality. Buhu means emptiness, void, waste. And so God made something, and when he started it, it wasn't perfectly formed. It wasn't in order. He called all things into being out of nothing, but this word, hovering, that the Spirit does, seems to put things in order, seems to give them life, seems to put them right in a very special way. The Hebrew word used for hovering is mera cherves, and according to Puritan scholar John Owens, it signifies a gentle motion, like that of a dove, to communicate vital heat to its eggs, or to cherish its young. Without him, all the Dead Sea, a rude, unformed chaos, a confused heap covered with darkness, all was that. But by the moving, hovering of the Spirit of God upon it, he communicated a quickening, prolific virtue. And so this hovering is, he says, it's like a bird on its nest. The egg will die by itself, but with the bird's giving it its warmth, its life-giving heat, just in the right way as God has designed it, this egg will hatch and it'll bring forth a beautiful little bird that'll grow. And in the same way the earth was like this hatchling, and the Spirit of God is hovering over it, and communicating to it its life, and it becomes ordered, it becomes powerful, it becomes real. And you see, he does this, and it says the Holy Spirit does this even before we hear the words, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. And God divided the light from the darkness. The Spirit was involved in this. And now, it's not exactly clear, how God the Father did this, and God the Son did this, and God the Spirit did this, but the Holy Spirit's part is communicated in this sense, this hovering, this giving that life-giving heat, this way that perfects it, that helps us. God's Spirit deserves credit. when you think of he's putting these finishing touches on this world, for the perfection of this world, which allows for physical life. Before the spirit was hovering, supposedly it was too-hoo and boo-hoo, and there was no life, it was emptiness, it was a kind of a blob, and today there are many scientists who are starting to wonder, even non-believing scientists, even though they're starting to believe, they see the order in the universe. They see how life on Earth is not something that they'd expect to see on this planet and this planet and this planet. And why is that? You'd say, well, there's so many stars and so many planets that must be with those stars and there has to be life just because there's so many. That's what some scientists say. But other scientists are saying the perfection of our planet and the distance it is from the sun, and the way it has water, and the perfection of the atmosphere, it's impossible that there could be life anywhere else. In order for physical life to exist anywhere, at least a carbon-based life like we have here, these things are required, and these are just part of it. One is water. You don't have life anywhere without water. It's mentioned in Genesis 1-2 and also verses 6 and 7 and 9. It's essential for life. Water brings life to soil, to plants, to circulatory systems in all animals and in us. Water in oceans regulates the temperature of the earth. It keeps it at a nice temperature so it's not too hot or too cold. Water is necessary. for life as we know it, and there won't be life on other planets unless there's water. And then it also requires, life requires light. Genesis 1, 3 through 5. And light in the universe is a wonderful thing. There's a whole electromagnetic spectrum of which only a trillionth, a trillionth of a trillionth, which is a very small number, A very small part of the light in our universe, a trillionth of the trillionth, is the visible light that enables us to see color and enables plants to live, and most of the rest of the light Either radio light, which we know of radio waves or microwave or infrared or ultraviolet or X-ray or gamma light. Most of that is blocked by our atmosphere. Our atmosphere is just perfect, so it only lets that kind of light. that is only a trillionth of a trillionth of all the light in the universe to come into our, and our sun just happens to have that very special kind of light, and the only light that can come in is that trillionth of a trillionth It's just perfect for life and for us, actually, to be able to see each other and to see the animals and the trees. It's just the perfect, exact kind of light. And it's only a little kind of light of all the light. The rest of the light, if we had too much of it, would destroy us. Can you imagine being fried in a microwave? That's what most of the universe is like. And they can't even see it happening because, actually, they don't exist in the first place because there's no life to start. We have that special kind of light and God said let there be light and there was light and it was the perfect kind of light The firmament Genesis 1 6 to 8 our atmosphere is perfectly missed to sustain life to protect us from harmful light rays and meteorites Our atmosphere is such that when a meteorite comes towards our Earth, it burns up before it ever comes in. And it also protects us from the harmful kind of lights, as I already just said. Also, we have dry land. Mentioned in Genesis 1, 9 through 10, the Earth is not just a lump of dirt. People say, well, we're just a ball of dirt sliding through the universe. No, it's not. It has tectonic plates. that float around on the Earth. And these tectonic plates are just the right thickness so that they actually move, but they're not sliding all around really fast. They're just moving at the right amount of weight to help the Earth's core to have gravity and to hold everything on. Just the right amount of gravity. If you can imagine, if the gravity was pulling harder, we'd be pulled down flat like pancakes on the earth. Or if it was lighter, we might be floating off the earth along with everything else. It's just that perfect amount of gravity, and that's because of the movement of the tectonic plates being just perfect itself with the just perfect everything else. And if all these different factors weren't just perfect, There would not be life. The same thing with the sun and the moon and the stars. The sun is the right size exactly and the earth is the exact distance from it to maintain a revolving orbit around it. The moon is a quarter of the size of the earth and it keeps the earth's access, the moon actually does, keeps the earth's access on a steady tilt maintaining the seasonal temperature weather that we have and we are in the perfect spot in the galaxy Not only for our safety, because in other parts of the galaxy there'd be big stars going around and we might be hit by a whole bunch of them or burned up by them. But we're in this perfect spot where not only are we safe, but we can also see most of the galaxy. The Hubble telescope can look all around the universe and see different things. And that's partly because we're in the right spot. We don't have some big star right in front of us blocking it. We have our sun. But we can look at the night sky and we can behold God's glory. That's why it says in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth its handiwork. Day unto day utters speech and night unto night reveals knowledge. And when we see all these things, it's the Spirit of God who perfected these things. That was his role in this. The Holy Spirit is also given credit in Scripture for reviving things which were drowned, dry, or dead. We see in Psalm 104, the passage that I read at first also, verses 29 and 30, it says, you hide your face, they are troubled, You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. You send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. Now Psalm 104 in general is talking about the flood and how God brought about the flood on the earth and destroyed the earth. But then everything was brought back to life. Noah and his family and the animals repopulated. But the trees and plants also regrew. And they were never necessarily, we don't read about them bringing every kind of plant onto the ark. But God regrew them. And he does that. We see not so much here in Florida, because it stays warm pretty much all year round. But any of you who have lived up north, which I did. I lived and born in Chicago and lived in several different places up north. In the winter it gets cold and the plants die. The trees in the fall fall off the leaves. They're dying and then you have these trees that hardly have any leaves on them after a while. It's hard to remember these things, being in Florida so long. But then, in the springtime, it all comes back. And I believe that's partly what's talked about here. You send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth. And here I believe the spirit is given credit for this renewal, this coming back to life. And I know there's scientific explanations for these things, but not total. They don't know everything about it. It's the spirit who is behind these things. And so God's Spirit works in this renewal. God's Spirit also, secondly, and this is really the second main point of a two-point sermon, God's Spirit is involved in our human creation. Notice it says in Genesis 126, then God said, let us make man in our image. That automatically tells you that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all involved, all three of them, in creating us. And he says, in our image, we were created One way, it says in Scripture, God is love. In 1 John 4, 8, we were created to have relationship. God always had relationship within himself between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. It's the Spirit who gives us breath, who gives us life. I think that's why he's called the Holy Spirit part of it, because the word Spirit and breath are the same in Scripture, the same word. And it says, And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, man became a living being and I believe it's the spirits part of us not just our we think of our spiritual life and last week I I quoted from Ezekiel 37 about how prophecy prophesied to these dry bones can these bones live and and The breath breathe the Spirit of God breathed on the bones and they lived and I believe that represented the spiritual renewal the spiritual new birth the same thing as as Ephesians and 2.1, You, He hath made alive who are dead in their trespasses and sins. And when we've come to Christ, when we're truly regenerated, it's the Spirit who brings about that life. But I believe when it says, even in Genesis 2, that the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Since God has already given this Holy Spirit credit for nature, for bringing the plants to life in the springtime, I believe He's given every animal and us all the breath of life. That is the gift of God's Spirit. Our physical life. Our resurrection bodies. even Christ's. We read last week, Romans 8-11, that the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. And so if we're looking forward to the resurrection, we know it's the Spirit. He's experienced it, doing this kind of thing. He brings life. We see eternal life is credited to the Spirit by Jesus. In John 6, 63, he says, it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. And so life itself is credited to the spirit. I believe physical life and spiritual life. ultimately are His doing. God creates and recreates us in His image. It says, God said, let us make man in our image. And it says in Genesis 127, so God created man in His own image, and the image of God He created him, and male and female He created them. Ephesians 4 24 talking about our recreation in his image because we've sinned we've lost that image of God we were created in knowledge and righteousness and holiness and because of our sin our knowledge became ignorance our righteousness became sin it became moving away from transgression against God and our holiness became idolatry and Yet God renews us And it says, and that you put on the new man who was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. It's the Holy Spirit who renews the image of God in us. The same thing it says in Colossians 3.10, and I put on a new man who is renewed in knowledge. according to the image of Him who created Him. And so we are renewed in these ways, just like the grass in the springtime or the flowers are renewed by the Spirit. So we are renewed. God's Spirit even endows man with creative abilities. Not only is He a creator, but He can make us, being in God's image, also creative. I just picked one verse because I may preach on this whole idea another time. I'm not sure yet, but actually not one verse, but three verses from Exodus 31, 2 through 5. It says, See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of her, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God and all wisdom in understanding, in knowledge, and in manner of workmanship. to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting jewels for the setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of workmanship. And now what he's talking about there is the building of the tabernacle, which I imagine was a very beautiful thing. Well, how did they build that? Well, at least one man, and you read of others also that helped him. He was gifted by the Holy Spirit in all these different abilities, artistic work, building works, craftsman-type works. And it says, no, these are not just skills he honed on his own. It was the Spirit who enabled him, who empowered him to do these things. And so we see, as I've already said, at the very beginning of the sermon, the Spirit of God adorned the heavens. The Spirit gives us powers even to have these kind of things. Not that all of us have these gifts, but some will be given these special gifts, and Bezalel is one of them. These are meant to be used for God's glory. 1 Corinthians 10, 31 says, whether therefore you eat or you drink, or whatever you do, do all the glory of God. And God has given us each different gift that we can use for His glory, and it's by His Spirit that we are empowered to these things. These are part of God's plan for every Christian notice that says in Ephesians 2 8 through 10 For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves It is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast For we are his workmanship and workmanship means his beautiful poem his beautiful work of art We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand and that we should walk in them. God intended us, each of us, to be empowered by His Spirit to do good works. The Spirit is the creator. The Spirit is the one who puts the finishing touches on the work of God, and He's going to work in our lives and use us in the same way, because we're created in God's image. Let us pray. Father, we thank you. We thank You for Your Spirit. We thank You for the things that He does. How He is the One who beautifies. How He is the One who takes what is to-who and boo-who. What is without form and void. And He hovers over it. And He gives it life. And He gives it beauty. And He makes it. He puts it in order. And Father, we know that by your Spirit, you're able to do the same in each of our lives. And we pray that you might do that for each one of us. Help us to love you and follow you. Help us to have the fruit of the Spirit. Help us to serve you in a way that pleases you. And Father, we pray that we might be your people. and you might truly be our God, and that might be evident by your gift to us of your Holy Spirit in powerful and wonderful ways. Father, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.